IN DEPTH ‘‘
How best do we make AI more transparent and ensure that governments and top-table decision makers are aware of the library, information and knowledge community’s respected values...
Gary Horrocks, UKeiG Business Co-ordinator and editor of eLucidate
info.ukeig@
cilip.org.uk
Why, how, what, where? Building a voice, value and impact
The 2025 CILIP Conference issued a rally cry for the power of advocacy, evidencing and measuring value and impact, the importance of leadership, ethics, knowledge and information integrity, the need to militate against the erosion of intellectual property and build an AI literate workforce. Gary Horrocks looks back on this year’s highlights.
I DEPARTED the Hilton Metropole in Birming- ham with fundamental questions. How best do we separate fact from fiction in an age of artificial intelligence? How best do we mobilise against the cannibalisation of information? How best do we make AI more transparent and ensure that governments and top-table decision makers are aware of the library, information and knowledge community’s respected values and dedication to ethically preserving, protecting and disseminating information.
The ultimate idiosyncrasy of our digital and data driven society was the elephant in the room. The digitally divided haves and have nots. The AI and information literate versus the electronically e xcom- municated. How best can we bridge that gaping divide? The conference was defined by a celebratory love letter to information professionals in poetry by Rishi Dastidar.
“He referenced our ability to turn ‘landscapes into maps… To be alive is to pose why? How? What? Where?... Breathing search engines, we dissect the quest. A puzzle to be solved. Constant little connections to the thrill of the chase, pinfinders in the infinite hay- stacks.’ He waxed lyrical that ‘knowledge is justice. And all should be welcome in the temple of taxonomies.” It was a beautiful and eloquent start to the two-day event (read it here
https://tinyurl.com/IPConfA25). In a message to the profession CILIP President Sue
Autumn 2025
Lacey Bryant referenced the cruciality of leadership, the profound volatility of the information landscape in a world where monolithic technology giants drag us by the nose. She analogised the North Star, a constant in an age of rapid change where we strive to serve the digitally and data literate whilst liberat- ing the digitally divided and immersing ourselves in an artificially intelligent tsunami that is profoundly more immense than ourselves. “The North Star has come to symbolise a guiding light – one that gives
Conference keynote speech from Sue Lacey Bryant. INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL 51
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
