whether you want them switched on or not.” These problems are not a surprise according to Ann, who says: “SCONUL strategy in relation to AI right from the beginning was to say we’re very unlikely, in the community size that we have, to be building our own AI tools. So a lot of the AI tools that have been developed are stu- dent support or researcher support tools, not library, workflow type tools. “There are exceptions like a start- up which surfaces open educational resources, rather than paid for content, in academics’ reading lists. It’s work that probably wouldn’t have been done before because it was too labour intensive. And it’s an example of AI becoming exciting for libraries because it allows us to work differently and it’s got real potential to save institutions money.”
Publisher AI
“There are challenges with some of the AI tools being developed,” Ann says. “If each publisher sells AI based research support tools trained on their own content alone, this throws up a range of problems. First, libraries would come under pressure to a purchase a whole range of different AI tools and not every institution will be
able to afford this, exacerbating inequal- ities in the sector. This isn’t great for research purposes either. For example, a chemist will get one set of outputs to their prompts for one publisher. But the same questions will get a different set of responses from another publisher. There’s a lack of universality in responses. But I think in five years’ time this is going to look really different. Publishers will have to change their business models in an AI environment.”
CILIP and SCONUL
All this change will mean disruption in the profession which, Ann says, leaves “a huge amount of scope for a CILIP and SCONUL to work together”. Equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) as well as the Green and sustainable agendas, are areas where she thinks there will always be potential for joint working. But the other obvious area of alignment is “how the profession will develop as the world changes”.
One of these changes is workforce size “I think the Library Workforce is going to shrink,” Ann says. “I can’t see that that won’t be the case.”
At the moment this is mainly via volun-
tary redundancy which, Ann points out, is still cuts. She said SCONUL is looking at “how you cut with the least damage. If the shape of your team is driven by voluntary severance you have to think creatively about how to make best use of the people who are left. But it’s no longer a question of doing more with less, it’s a question of doing less with less and how you titrate that. We’re planning to do some work on it when the dust has settled a little bit. And on how people approach the restruc- turing their teams.”
But she sees SCONUL and CILIP working together in this difficult envi- ronment to keep the profession coherent. “There’s a broadening out and a blurring of boundaries in the profession. How do we support development so that the prompt engineer is a librarian and the frontline customer services person is also a librarian? And how do we do that while keeping our cultural, and ethical missions – missions shared by everyone I’ve ever worked with in Libraries? And do that in a post truth era – I don’t want to call it that – but where truth becomes a contested thing. In the space we’re in commitment to honesty and integrity is absolutely important.” IP
Autumn 2025
INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL 25
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70
