Final Proposal

Currently, I am going with my thesis idea due to the lack of time with the enormous amount of background research.

1) Thesis Project :: To create a shelf interface. When you pick a book off the shelf, it will highlight other books related by illuminating that portion of the shelf. I am not sure if this is an art piece, but I will produce a working prototype.

2) Etch-A-Sketch using a trackball and 8x8 RGB LED grid. It reminds me of Lite-Brites back when I was a child.

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I noticed when I visited the NYPL on 32nd street, that most of the space used was occupied in the center of the library, and hardly the anyone was using the stacks. I'm hoping the illuminated shelves will rectify this problem. The X denotes where people are physically occupying the space.

I would like to design a shelf that uses technology to highlight the book, and maybe even integrate a social network of books. For instance, instead of the typical algorithm (Amazon), "People who like this book, also like....," it would highlight books that one would not normally read (i.e. reversing the Echo Effect) in a more subtle way.

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From my past projects, I plan on testing the illumination of this shelf with LED lights to see if it is visible in a fully lit environment.

Also, in the past I worked on two shelves using RFID readers:

1) Storyteller: When a book is taken off the shelf, it triggers a call to your telephone or possibly a mobile phone, and reads a story via a dial plan in Asterisk.

2) Smart Shelf: Whenever a book is taken off the shelf, an interest in the book was assumed. This shelf would count the frequency of the books taken off the shelf, and rank them the most popular.

The illuminating shelf will be an iteration of the Smart Shelf and Storyteller, and various tests on materials.

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Here are some of the initial files for the base of the shelf that I will test. Some other sensors that I will be testing are pressure sensors and scales to get a more accurate read. The antenna will be etched on a 12x24 inch piece of Plexiglas. On the backside, these patterns.