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Profile: Library of Congress kiosks put three awards on the shelf

After making a splash at this month's KioskCom Self Service Expo, a kiosk deployment at The Library of Congress continues to wow visitors and set the bar for the museum experience.

May 19, 2009 by

Whatever one thinks of the U.S. government these days, it sure knows how to deploy a kiosk.

That's the consensus of a panel of judges who gave three Self Service Excellence Awards, including Best of Show, to the Library of Congress Experience, a project that comprises more than 50 kiosks, an interactive Web application, an oversized interactive wall and cell phone audio tours.

At the ceremony, held earlier this month at the KioskCom Self Service Expo, the program also received Deployer of the Year and Best Other Deployment awards.

The excitement from Library of Congress Experience program manager Rob Sokol was evident as he accepted the awards for the team, which includes Librarian of Congress James H. Billington and COO Jo Ann Jenkins.

"To us, the KioskCom awards mean that we are truly on the cutting edge, and we are extremely proud to receive this profound recognition," he said.

A unique, cross-channel experience

When Sokol and his colleagues conceived the idea for the Library of Congress Experience five years ago, their objectives were clear. The Library knew it would see more visitors, thanks to the newly constructed Capitol Visitor's Center across the street, and it wanted to help them maximize the visit once they arrived.

"Before the Capitol Visitor's Center, people who came to the Library knew where they were going," he said. "Now, they go to see the Library, but they don't necessarily know anything about it. This caters to a new group of the general public that we had never really catered to before."

VIDEO: Watch a demo of the Library of Congress Experience here.

Visitors to the Library will find an institution equipped with advanced technology, including more than 20 kiosks full of information specific to the exhibitions or architectural details immediately next to them. For instance, a visitor can view and turn the pages of a rough draft of the Declaration of Independence, complete with Benjamin Franklin's handwritten notes, or she can take a closer look at the paintings and mosaics in the Library's Great Hall, all on either 20- or 32-inch, high-definition touchscreens.

"This implementation is so much more than just an information kiosk," said Faith MacPherson, director of HR transactional services for Avery Dennison and a judge for the Self Service Excellence Awards. "Visitors are able to turn pages of books, interact with objects and view details of paintings, all with the touch of a finger."

In addition to the exhibition kiosks, the Library has installed more than 30 "myLOC" stations, which feature functionalities identical to one another but contain content specific to their individual locations. It is here that visitors can use their Passports to Knowledge, a pocket-sized replica of an actual passport that features a guide to the exhibitions and instructions on how to use the tool, as well as the capability to be inserted into the myLOC stations and save the visitor's activities.

The content on the Library of Congress kiosks is developed to appeal to visitors of all ages.

Each myLOC station has four functions:

1. Explore this Space. A visitor can examine details from the room she's standing in and save them to her personal accounts using the Passport.

2. Featured Highlights. A visitor can browse exhibitions, look up docent-led tours, or find Library events occurring throughout the day or week.

3. Knowledge Quest. A visitor can play a learning game that asks questions about her surroundings and challenges her to discover the answers. Each Quest follows up the final answer with an open-ended question to keep the visitor's mind in the Experience and curious.

4. Build Your Collection. Through the Passport, a visitor can save anything in the exhibition or space to her personal account and begin to establish her own online collection of Library of Congress treasures.

All of the myLOC activities can be continued at myLOC.gov, which also offers curatorial videos, related links to other Library "treasures" and a wealth of educational resources, including a continuation of Knowledge Quest, as well as activities and lesson plans for teachers that are based on state standards.

"We wanted kids, especially, to uncover things. So it's not only cool, but there's a little bit of exploration and discovery in the process," Sokol said. "We never wanted the technology to be for the sake of itself — whiz-bang alone. We needed the technology, wherever it was installed, to enhance and explain the visitor experience."

The nuts and bolts

The Library worked with various partners to design, develop and install each facet of the deployment, which is entirely privately funded.

All the kiosks run on Windows Vista, and their content consists of either WPF or Flash applications, designed and developed by Second Story Interactive Studio and built in part by Schematic. The interactive Web content is all in either Silverlight or Flash animation.

A few different industry players worked with the institution to develop and fabricate the kiosks' enclosures, including Design and Production Inc, which works specifically within the museum industry, Capital Exhibits, Riggs Ward Design and Color Ad Inc. In addition to collaborating on the kiosks' fabrication, Design and Production was the project's lead A/V integrator.

The Library's CMS, which serves both the on-site and online components, was built by Portal Solutions, is hosted by Terremark Worldwide Inc. and is powered by Microsoft Sharepoint.

Having the entire program networked to a central CMS has been a real benefit, according to Sokol. Library staff can reboot unstable machines remotely, even from their smart phones, and new content or software can be uploaded anytime, from anywhere — individually or in bulk.

"We have so much more control over content than we've ever had before," he said.

In terms of service and maintenance, the Library's I.T. department manages the physical machines, and its Web Services department oversees all of the software. The institution's Interpretive Programs Office and Education Outreach Office develop and manage all of the content, both on the kiosks and the Web site.

"It was really important to make this all feasible," Sokol said. "Maintenance can be very overwhelming."

â€˜Staggering' results

To ensure the technology would appeal to a diverse audience, the Library conducted focus groups before the deployment and found that adults and children have opposite ways of approaching a museum experience — adults typically look around and examine an exhibit before going to the technology, while children go to the kiosks first and explore their surroundings afterward.

At the Library's "unique interactive" stations, like this one, user can dig deep to learn about the building's classical architecture.

"We have witnessed, for example, a child showing their grandparent how to use an interactive, while the grandparent teaches the child about the subject matter being displayed," Sokol said.

In terms of results, Sokol called visitor response to the Library's interactive experience "staggering." He explains that the standard return rate for a device that encourages a continued experience (i.e., hopping onto a related web site after a tour) is 10-15 percent. The Library's goal was a 20-percent return rate.

"We are currently averaging a 54-percent rate for anyone who uses a Passport on-site returning to the Web site," Sokol said.

The program is making an impact from the user's perspective, as well. Industry consultant Janet Webster, of Creative Solutions Consulting LLC, recently visited the Library for a tour.

"The Library of Congress Experience is phenomenal," Webster said. "The way they have integrated technology into the classical environment is exceptional. The technology blends into the architecture and is totally unobtrusive."

And all the recognition the deployment has received certainly won't hurt the already impressive numbers.

"We typically compete with other cultural institutions, but this time we decided to throw our hats into the KioskCom pool to see how we might fare against private-sector competition," Sokol said. "It's that sort of recognition that helps validate what we've done as successful. We need real, concrete validation, not just people inside the Library saying it's a great thing."

The program's future

The private funds backing the Library of Congress Experience will run out in April 2011, but even now Sokol and his colleagues are hard at work on future plans. In addition to a mobile application the Library is currently piloting and will launch later this year, Sokol is putting together a workshop to determine where its leaders want to take the technology down the road.

"That is the big question, and why the KioskCom awards are so important to us," Sokol said. "The leadership at the Library truly believes that we have initiated a rich new relationship with teachers, students and the general public. With the proper funding in place, the Library could build on this award-winning, interactive platform as the technology evolves."