By Sarah Carter
On October 20, 2023, ILS alumni came together to raise a virtual toast and celebrate the 10th anniversary of the School of Library and Information Science’s move into the Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering.
The gathering began with a warm welcome from Luddy School Dean Joanna Millunchick who thanked Information & Library alumni for being among the School’s most loyal and generous donors. She emphasized how much she enjoyed attending her first American Library Association Annual Conference & Exhibition in Chicago during the summer of 2023 and expressly invited all alumni, especially recent graduates from the class of 2019 onward, to visit the Luddy School.
Dr. Noriko Hara, Chair of the Information and Library Science Department, also welcomed alumni and provided fascinating insights into what students and faculty in the program are doing today. Dr. Hara also told alumni about the department’s most popular specializations — Rare Books & Manuscripts, Archives & Records Management, and Music Librarianship — as well as recent student internships at the Aspen Music Festival, National Baseball Hall of Fame, and Cook Music Library. Finally, she invited all alumni to stay connected with the ILS Department through the department’s blogs, social media, and annual newsletter.
The event then moved into a session with five expert panelists: Dr. David Crandall, director of the Luddy Artificial Intelligence Center; Diane Dallis-Comentale, Ruth Lilly Dean of University Libraries; Dr. Howard Rosenbaum, ILS Department Director of Graduate Programs; Dr. Kahyun Choi, Assistant Professor of Information & Library Science; and Jake Nadal, Director of Preservation for the Library of Congress and IU ILS alumn.
The first question, “What is AI and how are we seeing it used today?” was posed to Dr. Crandall specifically. While Dr. Crandall cautioned that AI is broad and difficult to define, he defined it as technology that can solve problems or do tasks that seem to require intelligence. He also emphasized that AI is not as new of a field as some might think. Rather, it has a roughly 70-year history. Today, Dr. Crandall explained, AI is predominately associated with machine learning, or technology that learns from massive amounts of data, which makes data management extremely important. When it came to exploring how AI is used, Dr. Crandall pointed specifically to the role technology has played in medicine, education, and information finding.
Dr. Howard Rosenbaum then steered the discussion toward AI applications within librarianship. Dean Dallis-Comentale responded first, saying that she hoped AI could be harnessed to generate descriptions for large collections of digitized items. However, Dean Dallis-Comentale also expressed concerns about how AI can impact information literacy and mentioned that she’s noticed an increase in students asking the reference desk to help them find information ChatGPT has generated. Jacob Nadal also responded, expressing hope that AI could be used to help break down language barriers and expand access.
The next question concerned the potential benefits AI could offer to libraries and archives when it comes to cataloging and retrieving information. Dean Dallis-Comentale expressed hope that AI could be utilized in preparing reparative descriptions while Jacob Nadal discussed the potential for AI to help decrease barriers regarding reading handwritten and cross-written materials.
The final topic of conversation was the difference between Generative and Interactive AI. Dr. Crandall began this conversation. He explained that Generative AI focuses solely on generating information and is more prone to hallucinations while Interactive AI incorporates continued human input and, in Dr. Crandall’s opinion, is moving in a more exciting direction. Other panelists brought up some related thoughts. Dr. Rosenbaum mentioned that a current Information Science doctoral student is doing fascinating research into chatbots. Dean Dallis-Comentale brought up parallels between helping individuals learn how to search in the early days of the internet and the need for individuals to know how to present effective queries into ChatGPT. Dr. Rosenbaum brought up the increase in prompt-engineering businesses and how it is monetizing work librarians have traditionally done for free.
The event ended with an invitation to raise a virtual toast, another thanks to all the attendees, and a reminder that all alumni are welcome back home to the IU campus at any time.