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The Living Library: Transforming Archival Collections into Conversational Knowledge Systems -- Lessons from the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library

arXiv · AI, language, vision and robotics · article · Sep 8, 2026 · UTC

We present the Living Library, an end-to-end framework for transforming fragmented digital archives into governed, conversational, in-person exhibit experiences. Developed and deployed at the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, the framework comprises four layers: digitization and corpus creation, AI-powered processing, retrieval and reasoning, and an optional embodied conversational interface. The first three layers aggregate a 300,000-record collection, apply OCR and structured metadata enrichment for expert curatorial review, and publish records to a hybrid dense/semantic index. Expert

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