KIM-Chatbot

Pilot operation

For the pilot operation, information about all KIM library services will initially be available. These include, for example: 

• Location and opening hours
• Loans and interlibrary loans 
• Literature search options
• Electronic media offerings
• Printing and scanning options
• Internet access
• Study and work spaces
• Literature management
• Open Access
• ... and many more services.

There are also plans to gradually expand the chatbot's knowledge base with information about KIM's other IT services.

The chatbot generates its responses using AI and based on specially stored and editorially reviewed text documents containing information about the individual services and their possible uses. As the central service facility for the operation of communication technology, digital information processing, and media provision, KIM offers a wide and diverse range of services for university members and guests with a wide variety of needs. Only a careful, step-by-step expansion of the underlying knowledge base can ensure that the chatbot can provide reliable and flexible information about all KIM services in the long term and that its responses also provide the necessary level of detail for each individual service.

During an extensive testing phase in collaboration with KIM's User Services and Media Processing departments, the information base was carefully adapted to ensure the highest possible quality of responses. Nevertheless, we cannot guarantee that the answers to all potential questions will always be completely accurate and complete. We are therefore open to and grateful for any constructive feedback that will help us to further optimize the chatbot and fill in any “blind spots.” If you find that individual responses are incorrect or incomplete when using the chatbot, please do not hesitate to contact our information desk directly if you have any doubts. In addition, we welcome your comments about obvious content deficiencies at any time at the following email address:

kim-chatbot@uni-hohenheim.de

Technology

• The KIM chatbot is based on the BibKI software from the KIT Library Karlsruhe.
• The chatbot is connected to an LLM (Large Language Model) from OpenAI via the OpenAI Responses API. The prepared documents (Markdown, PDF, txt) are uploaded to the chatbot's knowledge base via their Platform.
• When a query is received, the documents are searched for relevant text passages (method: RAG) and a response is formulated in continuous text using the LLM.
• Currently, the GPT-4o-mini model is being used, which is small, efficient, and resource-saving compared to other models.
• Article about BibKI: Dierolf, Uwe et al. (2025): Der KI-Chatbot „BibKI“ der KIT-Bibliothek. Published in: Information. Wissenschaft & Praxis 2025; 76(2–3): 95-103. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/iwp-2025-2002

Verarbeitung von Daten

The chatbot is designed so that no information about who uses it is processed or stored. Only the text you enter and send in the prompt is processed. This is forwarded to the connected, externally hosted LLM for information retrieval and response generation. We would therefore like to point out that you should not enter any personal information such as your name or address in the prompt.