Kotka City Library marked the Library Navigator’s six-month anniversary this week. Library director Mikko Vainio shared the results on Kirjastot.fi, including one estimate we had been reluctant to make ourselves: how much librarian time the service represents.
The Kyyti libraries have had an AI assistant since spring 2025. The first version was mainly a helpdesk. It answered questions about opening hours, library cards, events and services in dozens of languages. Patrons sent it around 40,000 questions in its first ten months.
Then, in March 2026, it changed jobs.
The Library Navigator, called Suosittelija in Finnish, works more like a reading adviser. Its recommendations draw on both the AI model and selections maintained by Kyyti’s librarians. It only suggests books that belong to the Kyyti collection, and it checks whether they are available.
Patrons can choose to share their loan history for more personal suggestions. If the first recommendation is wrong, the Navigator asks follow-up questions. Anyone who has tried to recommend a book knows that this is usually where the useful conversation begins.
The first six months
Since March, the Library Navigator has been available day and night. It has answered 6,867 questions from 2,689 patrons.
The recommendations are also sending readers back into the collection. New books already have displays, publicity and the advantage of being new. Older books are easier to miss, even when they are exactly what someone is looking for.
Mikko estimates that a trained librarian would need about 15 minutes for each consultation at this level. On that basis, the first six months represent at least four months of uninterrupted work. After allowing for ordinary breaks and holidays, he puts it closer to the work of two people. Over a year, the Navigator gives Kyyti’s 110 staff help roughly equivalent to two full-time colleagues.
No librarians disappeared when the Library Navigator arrived. Patrons simply gained another way to ask for help, including at times when the library is closed. Staff still do the work that needs a person, and books that might otherwise sit unnoticed are being found and borrowed.
It is teaching people how to use AI, too
We built the Navigator to help people find books. Patrons have found another use for it: practising how to talk to an AI.
They can try a vague request, see what comes back, add detail and decide whether the answer is any good. Getting a mediocre book suggestion is a fairly harmless way to learn that an AI needs clear instructions and should not be trusted automatically. The same judgement becomes more important when people use AI elsewhere.
We have found limits as well. Some patrons have ten years of loan history in Koha. Feeding that much information into a model can leave it struggling to make sense of the whole record. We do not have the problem fully solved yet, but we are working on it.
A face instead of a spinner
The Navigator began as an experiment. By its six-month anniversary, people were using it as a regular library service, mostly on their phones.
Game designer and graphic artist Sai Zhou redesigned the interface around that reality. The most noticeable addition is the Navigator’s avatar. While the system works, the character blinks, thinks and sometimes takes a sip of coffee.
A normal loading spinner would have done the technical job. The avatar does something slightly different: it shows that the conversation is still moving without making the user stare at a progress indicator. It feels closer to waiting while someone at the library desk considers a question.
The design is made for more than one library network. Each library can use its own colours and typography while keeping the same underlying service and character. The Kyyti version looks like it belongs to Kyyti. Another library’s version will look like theirs.
The Library Navigator is open to everyone at kyyti.finna.fi. It works on any device, and patrons can write in the language they prefer. No library card is needed. Logging in only adds recommendations based on the patron’s own loan history.
Read Mikko Vainio’s original post (in Finnish) on Kirjastot.fi.
