The Dean of Syed Babar Ali School of Science and Engineering, Dr. Shahid Masud, inaugurated the NaviBook kiosk at Gad & Birgit Rausing Library, LUMS on Thursday, May 10, 2018. This state of the art kiosk is one of the outcomes of Ignite, National Technology fund, and Pakistan funded research project, titled “Indoor location based services (LBS) for mobile devices”. The principal investigator (PI) of this project is Dr. Naveed Ul Hassan, Associate Professor, Electrical Engineering Department and Co-PI is Dr. Muhammad Adeel Pasha, Assistant Professor, Electrical Engineering Department. The project started in December 2016 and its aim is to provide location based services in indoor environments.
The inaugurated kiosk, the first-ever facility in any library in Pakistan, allows the visitors to search and navigate to approximately 150,000 books located in more than 1000 racks on the two floors of LUMS Gad & Birgit Rausing Library. The navigation path to the desired book rack can also be imported to NaviBook Android application, also developed by the project team, with the help of a QR code. A self-localisation feature is also available in the kiosk that allows anyone to find a navigable path from any starting point of choice inside the library to any desired book. Several value added features, such as LUMS news and events, Point of Interest (POI) search, the menu of the Pepsi Dining Center (PDC), and the academic calendar are also included for the facilitation of users.
At the inauguration ceremony, Dr. Hassan and Dr. Pasha briefed the guests about the project and the main features of the kiosk. Dr. Masud appreciated the work done by the project team and also discussed the growing importance of libraries as vibrant spaces equipped with all types of facilities to support a diverse range of academic activities.
Dr. Hassan thanked his team which included Waqas Tariq Dar, Ali Husnain, Hafiz Muhammad Amir, Muhammad Umar Farooq, and Taimur Sultani for their dedication and hard work in making the project a success. He also talked about the continued support of Ignite and the LUMS library staff, particularly Dr. Nadeem Siddique (Head of Department, Gad & Birgit Rausing Library) and Mr. Muhammad Zeeshan (Deputy Manager, Gad & Birgit Rausing Library) as being immensely important.
