I wonder if a 'google streetview' like system could be used to find library books that have been misfiled.

A robot drives around the shelves taking photos of the books on the shelves, those are then matched to what is expected to be found in that section, obviously there will be some without names or labels on the spines - but hopefully not many. But it can atleast say there are 4 unknown books and 3 unaccounted for in a section.

Obviously that won't help in this case when delicate artifacts are in boxes.