BookBot

A messaging bot that allows you to access your local library

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Inspiration

The system of going to a library, checking out books, returning books, and placing holds on old fashioned websites is too tedious, so we thought of a way to modernize and automate a library with a chat bot.

What it does

The product, BookBot, lets users and librarians access the library from their phones and search for books, view holds, and more.

How I built it

We used GupShup, a bot platform, to build our bot with javascript and nodejs. This bot would be deployed onto Facebook Messenger to use. We also used the Google Books API for the books and NLP to make the bot more user-friendly.

Challenges I ran into

Different messaging platforms behaved differently and handled images differently.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

We managed to create our own chat bot with natural language processing and give it a practical application in society.

What I learned

We learned the ins and outs of GupShup, especially how its database works. We also learned the algorithms behind NLP.

What's next for BookBot

We plan to integrate the 3m, the eBooks platform that libraries use today, into BookBot and perhaps make a virtual library with only bots.

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