Under the conditions of the remote working regime of the TSU Research Library, the demand for online communication with its patrons escalated. Along with other communication channels, the library chatbot Stefan* required a serious update. It had been answering users’ questions on library navigation and services successfully since the end of 2019 on the social network VKontakte, the employees had been constantly analyzing users’ inquires and adding new commands. Switching to the remote working regime required a strong update of the content and developing Stefan’s “word-stock” so that it could quickly respond to new inquires.

First, it was necessary to analyze the changes in the standard library functions and users’ inquires. For instance, it was no longer possible to order books as usual, because books were home delivered by library couriers, certain restrictions concerning book return sprang up as well, new digital services appeared, and so on. The analysis showed that about 60% of chat bot’s content required updating, the number of complex inquiries had increased threefold and they had to be “resolved” into simple commands. Such a great amount of work...