By Lily Natter
On Thursday, April 10th, the Information and Library Science Department held a virtual Alumni Panel Discussion. The panel was focused on the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in the field of information and library science and the ways it is transforming how we search, manage, and interact with information. Five panelists led the discussion, all providing different perspectives:
- Howard Rosenbaum, Director of Graduate Programs for Information & Library Science; MIS Program Director; Professor of Information Science.
- Yuerong Hu, Assistant Professor, Information and Library Science.
- David Crandall, Luddy Professor of Computer Science; Director of Luddy Artificial Intelligence Center; Director of Center for Machine Learning.
- Jake Nadal, President at Center for Research Libraries.
- John Dunn, Assistant Dean for Library Technologies, IU Libraries.
The discussion began by exploring how AI is already evolving from a tool that information professionals can use to one completing more advanced tasks, such as replacing librarians at a reference desk, processing documents, migrating data, or assisting in making library materials more accessible to users with various types of disabilities. The experiments involving how AI can best support patrons are largely taking place in academic libraries, but all libraries are also invested in developing AI literacy as part of general information literacy. It may also be possible to use AI to predict how users might respond to different library programming, based on data from previous library programming or events. However, most of this technology is in a development phase.
For the general future of AI, more work needs to be done to study how it interacts with humans, in terms of how it is designed, how they explain reasoning, and how they learn from humans. Focusing on this, and not replacing humans with this technology, will allow us to use AI more effectively as a tool. This is true generally, and in the specific context of libraries. Both librarians and libraries have proved themselves resilient and willing to adapt to new technologies, and the situation with AI is a new step that libraries will learn to work with. Of course, there are ethical dilemmas that librarians and other information professionals must be aware of. One of the most pressing is concerns about privacy, both for library users and for people and information represented in a collection. Figuring out how to use AI for various data collection services while preserving privacy is an ongoing challenge.
As AI and the way that it is being used evolves, it is sometimes hard to tell what the library and information science landscape will look like in the coming years, but the panelists made some excellent points about our state of uncertainty. First, this field is one of the best equipped to deal with challenges involving misinformation, and though AI might present this issue at a larger scale, we already have the tools to combat it. At this point, the best thing that people involved in library and information science can do is to stay informed about AI, whether it’s by reading books or journals, attending conferences, or further education.
