Using Raspberry Pi's to drive Digital Signage in Libraries and beyondDR JON KNIGHT, IT SERVICES, LOUGHBOROUGH UNIVERSITY

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

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.

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.

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.

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!)

Reducing per display costs

The Original Raspberry Pi

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.

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.

What PC lab availability looks like

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.

Examples of Group Study Room booking displays

The display in real life!

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.

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.

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)

Examples of other displays in the Library

Any questions?

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/