NEWS
Public library downloads leap
THERE has been a 21 per cent increase in the number of ebooks, audiobooks and digital magazines downloaded from public libraries using OverDrive and Libby. Overdrive said digital magazine check- outs grew in 2023 by 42 per cent, due in large part to the expanded selection avail- able as well as to Libby’s recently added one-tap magazine checkout feature. Since 2021, UK public libraries have seen a 34 per cent increase in ebook and audiobook checkouts, with audiobooks increasing by 17 per cent this year.
Cyber attack debrief
“THIS was a situation we had thought about, we had rehearsed. Every CEO, not just in our sector, thinks about this and in some senses dreads that call,” says Roly Keating, CEO of the British Library in an interview with the Financial Times. Commenting on the decision not to pay a £600,000 ransom demand, he said: “It is just basic practice that you don’t pay money to criminal blackmailers.” The BL may now have to spend up to 10
times that rebuilding digital services. Roly Keating said: “Big as this attack has been, it will take its place as part of a long history of this place and hopefully will result in strengthening this major British institution.”
Bristol reverses recruitment freeze
COUNCILLORS voted unanimously to end a recruitment freeze in Bristol libraries that led to more than 300 full or part day closures over two months, affecting 26 of the city’s 27 libraries. A motion tabled by Liberal Democrat councillor Tim Kent received unanimous cross-party support and the council’s Labour administration said it has found the cash to end the ban on casual staff to cover absences.
Coucnillor Kent said that since the vote “even more (libraries) have closed and until now there appears to have been no action to reverse this policy which is undermining the branch library network”.
6 INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL
‘Get your hands dirty’ and explore the potential of AI
THE Francis Crick Institute’s Head of Library and Information Services, Dr Beth Montague-Hellen has written a blog for the CILIP website looking at how AI can help with research needs. With academic publishing growing each
year, the resources available to research- ers is expanding – and while this new material can aid future research, it is also creating problems about identifying the best sources. Writing on CILIP’s AI Hub Beth says: “[The] publish or perish culture in academia creates an ever increasing need to publish, and gener- ates vast quantities of written material, but can any researcher or student pos- sibly hope to read everything? AI might have the solution(s). “New generative AI tools, such as ChatGPT and Bard, can automatically summarise, select and recommend reading, and even provide answers to your questions.” And in order to find out how these
new tools work, Beth has tried some of them out in a series of tests and different types of prompts. Beth consid-
ered a number of scenarios where gener- ative AI tools could provide assistance, and the results were mixed. She points out that generative AI is already out in the wild, and many library users will be looking at the possibilities it presents already. Therefore, for those working in libraries, it is crucial to have an under standing of what results their users might be getting and, importantly, being able to explain why they may not be 100 per cent accurate.
And having a working knowledge means
that information professionals can go further than just pointing out the risks of relying on AI, they can start to give users the skills to judge for themselves. Beth says she wants librarians to “get
their hands dirty” using AI, adding: “Fire up the free version of a genera- tive AI tool (because that’s mostly what your users will be using) and give it a go. Don’t worry about integrating it into your workflows for now, just start asking a few questions.”
Read Beth’s blog on the CILIP AI Hub at
www.cilip.org.uk/AI.
BFI wins lottery cash for ‘Audit to Access’
THE BFI has received a grant for ‘Audit to Access’ from The National Lottery Heritage Fund. The project aims to under- take an “accurate inventory for planning and developing collections management strategies” and “ultimately enable greater access” to the national collection for the British public.
The £249,389 grant from The National
Lottery Heritage Fund will enable the BFI to recruit a team to deliver this stra- tegic collection review which will be for a sub-set of the BFI National Archive’s paper collections. The roles include two Paper Audit Assistants and a Data Records Specialist and later “a freelance Volunteer and Outreach consultant to help develop
opportunities for community volunteers to engage with collection review activity.” In recent years the BFI has acquired papers by leading filmmakers and has material relating to hidden or key crew and craft roles. The BFI said: “It is hoped that this project will help to surface more of these hidden hands and minds that go into UK filmmaking.”
Arike Oke, Executive Director of Knowl-
edge, Learning and Collections said: “By discovering more about the collections in the BFI National Archive that exist in paper and non-moving image formats, we’ll discover more stories and treasures that helps us to reframe the public’s rela- tionship with the nation’s screen heritage.”
January-February 2024
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