At the core of the Mahathir Mohamad Public Library is the bookBot robotic book delivery system, which can store up to two million items in a climate-controlled environment and deliver any of them within five minutes of a click in the online catalog. Requiring 1/9 the space of conventional shelving, the bookBot helps transform this 21st-century library from a storage facility into a rich environment of learning and collaborative spaces. 

In the bookBot, books and other items are barcoded, sorted by size, and stored in over 18,000 bins. Each item is scanned whenever it is removed from and returned to the system, maximizing the available storage space and allowing the libraries’ online catalog to track the location of all materials at all times. The system is both fascinating to watch and easy to use. Within minutes of receiving a request, one of the bookBot’s robotic cranes retrieves the requested material and delivers it to an operator, who sends it on to the “Ask Us” centre or to other library locations on campus via a rapid delivery service.