Built For Libraries
Most patron questions are the same handful — hours, library cards, renewals, room bookings, what's on for kids this week. FastBots learns your library website once and answers those questions any time, in around 95 languages. When someone needs a real reference librarian, the chat can hand over through Live Chat on the Business plan.
Providing AI Chatbots to Trusted Brands Around The World
Quick Answers
A library chatbot is a website assistant trained on your library's pages — hours, locations, card sign-up, holds and renewals, room booking, programming and FAQs. It answers patron questions any time of day, in their preferred language, and passes detailed reference questions to a real librarian.
No. FastBots handles the repetitive questions that flood the desk — hours, fines, how to renew, how to print — so librarians can focus on actual reference work. Detailed research questions and anything requiring judgement should still go to a person, and Live Chat lets a librarian step in when they do.
Yes. FastBots supports around 95 languages, so patrons can ask in the language they're most comfortable in and get an answer in the same language. That's useful for branches serving diverse communities where English isn't always the first language.
Around 5 minutes for a first version. Point FastBots at your library website, let it crawl your hours, services and programming pages, set a few house rules about what to escalate, then paste the embed snippet into your site. You can refine answers and add Q&A entries as you learn what patrons ask.
Why FastBots
Patrons can check tonight's closing time, weekend hours or holiday closures at 11pm without phoning the branch. The bot answers from your published schedule.
Walks patrons through how to place a hold, renew online, get a card or replace a lost one — using your library's own steps rather than generic advice.
Answers the predictable spikes around kids' programming, story time and study room booking, and captures sign-ups before the chat ends.
Patrons can ask in Spanish, Mandarin, Arabic, Vietnamese or whatever language they prefer and get an answer in the same language.
When a question needs a librarian — local history, research help, schools liaison — the bot collects name, email and the question, and emails it straight to the reference team.
On the Business plan, a librarian can claim the chat and reply in real time. The patron stays in the same window — no phone tag or new email thread.
FastBots starts as a chatbot trained on your site. Turn on live internet search or connect a Zapier workflow and it works more like an AI assistant — looking things up and routing enquiries to the right team.
You decide what it talks about. Custom instructions keep it focused on library services and tell it to refer detailed research, account-specific or sensitive questions to staff.
Real Scenarios
Patrons ask 'are you open Sunday?' or 'which branch has the makerspace?' and get a direct answer from your hours and locations pages.
Explains who's eligible, what ID is needed and how to apply online or in branch — and captures the enquiry if a patron wants the team to follow up.
Talks patrons through placing a hold or renewing online without making them hunt through the catalogue help pages.
Answers how long rooms can be booked, who can book them and how to cancel — and collects booking requests for staff to confirm.
Handles the weekly rush of 'what's on for the kids?' with current programming info and a sign-up form for spots that need registration.
Answers the small practical questions — cost per page, colour vs black-and-white, how to log on to a public computer, guest Wi-Fi access.
Explains your fines policy and replacement costs. For account-specific lookups it points patrons to the catalogue or the circulation desk.
Spots when a question needs a real librarian — research help, local history, schools liaison — and either captures the enquiry by email or hands off through Live Chat.
Try It Free
Sound Like It Would Help Your Branch?
Free plan, no credit card. Build your first chatbot in minutes.
Setup
Paste in your library's URL. FastBots crawls your hours, locations, services, programming and FAQ pages and trains the bot on what it finds.
House voice
Warm, patient and plain-spoken. Welcome everyone, keep answers short, and offer to connect patrons with a librarian for research questions or anything account-specific.
Add custom instructions: stay focused on library services, suggest the catalogue for item availability, refer detailed research to a librarian, and never ask for card numbers or full addresses.
Drop the embed snippet into your library website. The chat widget appears on every page, ready to answer patrons. Auto Retrain keeps it in sync with site updates on the Business plan.
Honest Comparison
Most libraries weighing this up are choosing between a chatbot, a static FAQ page on the website, or sending everything to the reference desk by phone and email.
FastBots From $39 / month | Static FAQ Page Free, on your site | Phone & Email Only Staff time | |
|---|---|---|---|
Answers Hours And Service Questions 24/7 Outside opening hours | Yes, trained on your site | Yes, if patrons find it | No, voicemail only |
Replies In ~95 Languages For diverse communities | Yes | Only languages you've translated | Depends on staff |
Captures Programming Sign-Ups Story time, study rooms, events | Yes, emailed to staff | Separate form | Phone or email |
Hands Off To A Librarian When the question needs judgement | Live Chat on Business plan | —No | Already a person |
Updates When Your Site Changes New hours, new programs | Auto Retrain on Business plan | Manual edits | Staff memo |
Setup Time To a working version | ~5 minutes | Hours of writing | Already in place |
Comparison reflects typical alternatives. Other tools may differ — always check current pricing and features before deciding.
Try It Free
Try It Free On Your Library Site
Free plan, no credit card. Build your first chatbot in minutes.
As an automation school, the best way I’ve found to impress visitors is with FastBots. It turns our site into a live demo of what smart, AI-powered automation should feel like. Visitors ask: “Who built this?!” We did—with FastBots.
Got Questions?
The ones we hear most before teams sign up. If yours isn’t here, our support team replies within hours during business days.
No, and it shouldn't. FastBots is best at the high-volume, repetitive questions — hours, cards, renewals, room booking, kids' programming. Real reference work, account lookups and anything requiring judgement still belong with a librarian. Live Chat on the Business plan ($89/month) lets staff step in when a patron needs a person.
Not directly — FastBots doesn't have native integrations with Koha, Polaris, Sierra or BiblioCommons. The right pattern is to have the bot point patrons to your catalogue search with a link, and explain how to place a hold once they find what they need. That keeps live availability where it should be: in the catalogue itself.
Set the bot's house rules to never ask for library card numbers, PINs or full addresses. The chatbot is for general information and triage, not account access. For anything account-specific, the bot should point patrons to logging in to the catalogue or contacting the circulation desk.
Yes. FastBots supports around 95 languages, so a patron can type in their preferred language and the bot will reply in the same language. That's particularly useful for branches serving multilingual communities where the website itself may only be in English.
Once it's trained on your programming pages, the bot can answer what's on, age ranges, whether registration is required and where to sign up. If a session needs sign-up, the bot collects the parent's name and email through the lead form and emails the enquiry to the children's team.
The bot is told in its house rules to refer detailed research to a librarian rather than guess. On the Business plan, Live Chat lets a librarian claim the conversation and help directly. Otherwise, the bot captures the question and the patron's contact details and emails the reference desk.
Yes. FastBots adds a small embed snippet to your site — there are documented installation routes for WordPress, Drupal, Squarespace, Wix, custom HTML sites and plenty more. If you can edit your site's template, you can install it.
Not natively, and we wouldn't claim that. The bot can explain the booking rules, capture a request with the patron's preferred time and contact details, and email it to staff to confirm. If you use Zapier or Make, captured requests can be pushed into a spreadsheet or workflow once the chat ends.
There's a free plan to test things out — one chatbot, 50 messages a month, no credit card. Paid plans start at $39/month. Live Chat, Auto Retrain and Email Replies are included from the Business plan at $89/month, which is what most library branches will want once they're live.
Around 5 minutes for a working first version. Point it at your library website, crawl the pages that answer the common questions, add a short set of house rules about escalation, and embed the widget. Most of the ongoing work is reviewing chat history and adding Q&A entries for questions the bot didn't quite nail.
Build a library chatbot trained on your hours, services and programming in about 5 minutes. Start free and upgrade when you need Live Chat or Auto Retrain.
