Guest Post — Cultivating Serendipity and Protecting Night Science
As AI-driven search reduces friction in information-seeking, what happens to serendipity, frustration, and “night science”?
In the Messy Middle: Observations from the Front Line at the UKSG Forum
The UKSG Forum is “an entire 2-3 day conference stripped back to bare essentials and completed in just one day”. Here are the key takeaways — changing priorities, from global to local; why it is getting harder to keep up and keep order; and the overriding importance of trusted relationships.
Guest Post — The Economics of AI in Academic Research
In the fast-moving world of AI research tools, there are many community-focused concerns that vendors should have strong opinions on and plans for, from privacy and security to sustainability and copyright. But the most misunderstood issue, in my view, is the one at the heart of it all — how AI will reshape the economics of academic research.
Guest Post — “Have You Proved You’re Human Today?” Open Content and Web Harvesting in the AI Era
AI web harvesting bots are different from traditional web crawlers and violate many of the established rules and practices in place. Their rapidly expanding use is emerging as a significant IT management problem for content-rich websites across numerous industries.
Guest Post — Beyond Classification: The Human Cost of Library and Information Labor Under Digital Capitalism
In an era of information abundance and epistemic chaos, libraries serve as crucial sites for democratic knowledge practices — protecting them is critical to preserving the infrastructure of informed citizenship itself.
Guest Post — What is the Current State of Academic e-book Business Models?
A new report from Ithaka S+R assesses the current state of scholarly monograph publishing in humanities and social sciences disciplines in order to understand how current business models are functioning for their consumer base, namely libraries and authors.
Guest Post — From Overhead to Essential: The FAIR Model Recognizes Research Information Services as Essential to the Research Enterprise
FAIR represents the best opportunity of the models under consideration to ensure that research information services receive appropriate recognition and sustainable funding
Reflections on Shared Infrastructure and Distinctive Collections
Roger Schonfeld reflects on lessons from more than 20 years conducting research and supporting the work of libraries, publishers, and the research enterprise.
Guest Post: Eight Hypotheses Why Librarians Don’t Like Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG)
AI-assisted search is here, and librarians need to have an honest discussion about how to integrate this new technology into library services. This post explores the parallels to the introduction of discovery layers and how to overcome some of the discomfort librarians might have with retrieval-augmented generation.
Ask The Chefs — The NIH Steps on the Open Access Accelerator
The NIH has answered the lingering questions about the future of the Nelson Memo. Not only is it still in effect, it’s being accelerated by six months. We asked the Chefs for their thoughts.
Guest Post — Supporting Academic Librarians in Navigating Attacks on Intellectual Freedom
A recently announced partnership with Emerald Publishing will bring the EveryLibrary Institute’s expertise to the academic library community as the U.S. government attacks extend to institutions of higher education.
Guest Post — Classification as Colonization: The Hidden Politics of Library Catalogs
The renaming of “Mount Denali” and “Gulf of Mexico” to the politically loaded “Mount McKinley” and “Gulf of America” reveal the naked truth of what cataloging has always been: a battlefield where meaning is contested and conquered.
Guest Post – The Future Is Not Perpetual (But it could be yours for just several thousand dollars per year…)
Clarivate recently announced that it is shifting to a “subscription-based access strategy,” meaning that it will no longer allow academic libraries to purchase perpetual licenses to content.
Guest Post — College Mergers and the Implications for Libraries and Vendors
While mergers can save struggling institutions and foster stronger student experiences in the long run, they are complex and their implications for scholarly content and services must be considered thoughtfully.
Guest Post: The Perennial Question of Librarian Credentialing
A new survey looks at the philosophies and practices around librarian credentialing in the United States.