ANTSwers: 2026 - current
URL: https://www.lib.uci.edu/antswers
Collaborators: Ashley Burke, Yasuhiro Shinohara, and Danielle Kane
As of 2025, ANTswers has been upgraded to use ZotGPT technology, transforming it into a full-featured AI assistant.
The new ANTswers can now handle more complex and in-depth questions. While you may notice a slight delay as responses are generated, the system is designed to provide more thoughtful answers and support iterative, conversational interactions.
Library staff regularly review ANTswers chat logs to improve and refine the service. No personally identifiable information is stored unless you voluntarily provide it during your conversation. For more details, please refer to the UC Irvine Libraries Privacy Statement.
ANTswers: 2014 - 2025
Created by Danielle Kane, Research Librarian for Emerging Technologies and Service Innovation, for the UCI Libraries Collaborators: Chloe Lerit, Jharina Pascual, and Jeff Schneidewind
ANTswers was an experimental computer program. UC Irvine Libraries' licensed online resources are available to current UC Irvine students, faculty & staff, use Connect From Off-Campus to enable remote access.
Released in 2014, ANTswers was an experimental chatbot that could answer questions about the UC Irvine Libraries. Talk to ANTswers using simple and short questions. Reply to questions with yes or no, or respond using the prompts supplied by ANTswers. The first link in a response will appear in a preview window, when you click on other links they will open in a new window. This old service was developed using AIML (Artificial Intelligence Mark-up Language). You can find more information about AIML at http://www.alicebot.org/aiml.html.
ANTswers is intended to help library patrons with simple questions about library resources and services. For more complicated reference questions, please use Ask a Librarian.
Library staff monitor and use ANTswers logs to continue to improve and refine the service. No personal information, beyond the chat logs, is kept by the system unless provided by you in the course of your ANTSwers conversation. For more information: UC Irvine Libraries Privacy Statement.
Original 2014 code - eScholarship: https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4bs6s3hs ANTswers Transcripts: https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.7280%2FD1J38B ANTswers data: https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.7280%2FD1P075
File Naming Structure
- b_ = file(s) support bot
- bANTerbot_ = book recommendation files by subject
- c_ = beneral conversation files
- lib_ = files about library services
- rr_ = ready reference files
- s_ = subject files - database recommendations