Pivotal Relights NCSU Library’s bookBot, Tackling Lighting Maintenance Challenges
New overhead LED lights were installed, with small cylinders replacing the compact fluorescent fixtures.
Senior Lighting Designer
Lighting systems don’t last forever, especially in unusual situations that challenge their capabilities. Failing to consider factors such as resilience and maintenance can lead to missteps, often resulting in expensive replacement projects.
Red lighting enables viewers to see the bookBot in action.
When North Carolina State University’s Hunt Library opened in 2013, its automated robotic retrieval system, the bookBot, became incredibly popular, unexpectedly drawing crowds of spectators. Unfortunately, the lighting proved insufficient to illuminate the robots working in the darkness of the archives.
As a result, the library staff began leaving the overhead fluorescent work lights on during open hours, which significantly increased the burn hours and caused the lights to fade rapidly. To further complicate matters, the library did not have a way to effectively access and replace the work lights.
Remote drivers for the LED overhead lights can be accessed by baker-style scaffolding.
In an article for EC&M, Senior Lighting Designer Leah Robinson discusses how Pivotal Lighting Design addressed the bookBot’s lighting challenges by implementing a maintainable lighting system that also enhanced the viewer experience. This new lighting system included overhead lights with a longer lifecycle and an “archi-tainment” component to highlight the bookBots in action.
The library was closed for about two months to dismantle and set up scaffolding, replace the lights and related wiring, and install and commission a new control system specifically for the bookBot. It's estimated that the lifetime of this new system will exceed 20 to 30 years.
The new lighting has reinvigorated interest in this innovative book retrieval system, underscoring the importance of considering long-term maintenance needs in lighting design.