Delivered by Dr. Jon Knight at the University of Sussex Library on Friday 17th November 2017. Part of the 'Affordable Futures' event: https://mmitblog.wordpress.com/2017/10/09/affordable-futures-high-tech-low-cost-library-innovations-17th-nov-13-00-16-30/

1. Using Raspberry Pi's to drive
Digital Signage in Libraries and
beyond
DR JON KNIGHT, IT SERVICES, LOUGHBOROUGH UNIVERSITY

2. Digital Signage in Loughborough
University Library
 Why does the Library want digital signage?
 To show actively changing information publicly
 To reduce the need for library staff to maintain lists of
bookings, event posters, etc.
 To provide event specific information and guidance
 To promote library resources and events

3. Original digital signage in the Library
 Before refurbishment the Library did have some digital
signage screens.
 Commercial system that was installed and run by the
University's central marketing and catering organisations.
 Showed things such as campus menus, University
promotional material and Library opening times.
 Equipment was quite expensive & power hungry, with
annual licence fees too.

4. Refurbishment: an opportunity for a
rethink
 Much of the library building was refurbished between March and
September 2013 at a cost of just under £5m.
 Level 4 that had been the library school became space for PC labs, group
study rooms and leisure reading collection.
 Entrance level extensively remodeled, with new staircase up to Level 4.
 Aimed to not only replace tired building fabric and facilities but provide
more high quality study spaces for students.
 IT Services moved their main help point, the "PC Clinic", into the Library as
part of the concentration of student support facilities.

5. Things to display after refurbishment
 Two main uses:
 Group study & meeting room bookings (from our home grown Web User
Booking System).
 PC availability, both within the library and in PC labs elsewhere on campus.
 Other uses:
 PC Clinic information (which changes during the year).
 Library opening hours.
 Other library promotional/event information.

6. The Raspberry Pi
 Introduced February 2012 by the Raspberry Pi Foundation, initially to help
teach computer science and IT literacy in UK schools.
 Very cheap (<£50 including power supply)
 Low power requirements
 Even initial models could drive HDMI video connections with HD video and
display simple static web pages.
 Runs Linux, and thus has a large supply of open source software available
to it.
 Small physical footprint (easy to secure / hide!)

7. Reducing per display costs

8. The Original Raspberry Pi

9. Screenly OSE – open source digital
signage package
 Free open source edition of a digital signage system maintained by
Screenly Inc.
 Available from https://www.screenly.io/ose/
 Supports web page display, images and video up to 1080p.
 Easy to install with pre-configured Raspbian operating system (the
Raspberry Pi version of Debian Linux).
 Locked down web management via secure SSH tunnels.
 Homegrown web admin allows library (& other depts) to manage screen
contents.

10. Lab PC availability display
 Had a pre-existing Application Programming Interface (API) available from
earlier Library mobile app development.
 Extracts machine usage using extension attributes in Active Directory, with
each PC lab in its own Organizational Unit
 Extracted data placed into a MySQL database for ease of access and to
reduce AD LDAP look ups from lots of displays.
 Also checks with central timetabling system (CMIS) and our own WUBS for
labs that have been booked for lectures and events.
 Updates the display every 2 minutes
 Shows bookable labs in one column, open access PCs in other.

11. What PC lab availability looks like

12. Group study room bookings
 Home grown Web User Booking System has provided staff and students
with study room booking ability via the web for over a decade and already
has an API we could use.
 Can show either a "full" or "reduced" display depending on how many
resources & bookings need to be shown. Reduced display just shows
previous, current and next bookings for each resource.
 Library levels (floors) are "branded" with a colour which is shown in the
title bar background.
 For each booking we show the start and end times and surname of person
booking it.
 Updated every 2 minutes, with last update time shown on display.

13. Examples of Group Study Room
booking displays

14. The display in real life!

15. What can go wrong?
 Some common issues we've found:
 Early 5V USB power supplies failing after some years of constant use.
 SD cards failing (especially older ones).
 Display screens failing (nothing to do with the Raspberry Pi!).
 Very occasional lock ups that require a power cycle to reboot.
 Raspberry Pi's are cheap enough that we keep a box of spare boards and
SD cards so replacement is quick and downtime minimized.

16. The evolution of the Raspberry Pi
 Raspberry Pi hardware development hasn't stood still!
 Original Raspberry Pi Model B had a 700MHz ARMv6 CPU, 512MB of RAM,
2 USB ports, a 100Mbps wired Ethernet & SD card slot.
 Latest Raspberry Pi 3 has 1.2 GHz 64-bit quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 CPU,
1GB of RAM, 4 USB ports, wired & wireless Ethernet, Bluetooth and micro-
SD card.
 Other similar single board computers are also now available, some sharing
the Raspberry Pi's physical size and I/O pin layouts.
 Lots of add-on boards and cases available – quite a well-developed
"ecosystem" of support.

17. What else could you use a Pi driven
display for?
 Display library opening hours (handy if it changes during
term/vacation/closure periods)
 Show live video streams from events elsewhere in the building/campus.
 Show live library social media postings.
 OPAC and reading list public terminals.
 Helpdesk queue management
 Self-help touch screen kiosks (eg setting up eduroam on phones or central
printers on student laptops)

18. Examples of other displays in the
Library

19. Any questions?

20. Further information
 Our Middleware & Library Systems blog posts on Raspberry Pi uses:
http://blog.lboro.ac.uk/middleware/blog/tag/raspberry-pi
 D-Lib magazine article by Dr Jason Cooper & myself:
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/may14/cooper/05cooper.html
 Raspberry Pi Foundation:
https://www.raspberrypi.org/
 Screenly OSE:
https://www.screenly.io/ose/