Day One 10th July 2024
Thanks to a bursary from the CILIP ARLG network, this year I was able to attend day one of the CILIP conference in Birmingham. Having never attended a library conference before I was excited to meet others in the profession and learn more about current issues. As I work for a university, I chose to attend sessions relevant to academic libraries.
The keynote speeches were inspirational, positioning the role of libraries within modern society as places which protect freedom of expression and truth. The first keynote speaker Daniel Gorman from English PEN drew upon the past (and sadly present) targeting of libraries during times of conflict. Examples of librarians from the Second World War and current conflicts like the war in Ukraine were compared with striking similarities as they risked their lives to save special collections. Gorman argued that the targeting of libraries demonstrates their importance to society as they are places which facilitate the sharing of ideas and therefore protect freedom of expression.
The second keynote speaker Stijn Hoorens from RAND Europe explained how the research institute characterises a ‘post-truth’ society, such as public debates focusing on whether facts/statistics are correct, the blurring of fact with opinion and the declining trust in formerly respected sources of information. The results of truth decay were listed as erosion of civil discourse, political paralysis, alienation and uncertainty. Hoorens argued that there was significant truth decay in the USA already but that it was also present in Europe albeit to a lesser extent.
At the point I was starting to despair about the state of societal discourse, Hoorens offered some solutions for navigating truth decay which included libraries. The access to information, staff’s skills as trainers and space that libraries provide are all resources that individuals can use to find their way through a post-truth world. Although these keynote speeches were stark reminders of global issues, they reminded me of the bigger picture beyond the day-to-day experiences of the library I work in to the wider contribution libraries make to society.
With AI currently one of the biggest changes to the information landscape I attended the talk AI and the Digital Humanities which featured speakers from the British Library, University of Manchester and IIIF. From this I gained an insight into how AI can optimise research processes by replacing manual work like finding patterns in word usage and making collections accessible to a wider audience through creating interactive chatbots of historical figures.
The limitations of AI were also noted with the loss of provenance of sources identified as a significant threat, partly because AI can be used to alter sources, but also because AI programmes use web scrapers to gain their training data which makes it difficult to trace the origins of a source. In addition to understanding how AI can be used in humanities research projects, I also gained a better understanding of how AI works from this talk especially with regards to its training datasets. I look forward to seeing what uses AI is up to in the future in the digital humanities as all speakers noted that AI is in its infancy.
The next talks I attended focused on financial and environmental sustainability respectively; both included speakers from outside the library profession which brought fresh insights to these issues. The speakers for Transformative Agreements: A Sustainable Model? were from academic libraries and Cambridge University Press which provided different perspectives on the effectiveness of transformative agreements in moving journals to open access. Cambridge University Press noted their success over the last few years in flipping titles to open access (currently 73% are open access) and the resultant increased readership.
However, both speakers acknowledged that not all publishers had committed to their targets. The value of transformative agreements, given that open access typically only covers recent issues meaning a subscription to past issues is often required, was questioned, as well as whether moving to published open access encouraged poor research practices. Perhaps unsurprisingly neither speaker felt that transformative agreements were sustainable and tentatively suggested alternatives such as diamond open access. As I am relatively new to working in academic libraries, I gained a better understanding of the context of open access by hearing the origins of transformative agreements. The talk clearly demonstrated the impact of publishing methods on readership, and I will be sure to keep up with new developments to open access.
Collections Go Green: Accrediting Sustainable Library Design presented by Kirsty Shankland of Wright and Wright Architects introduced me to an area I had no experience of. Shankland explained the three major environmental standards that can be used to guide environmental sustainability for buildings – Passivhaus, BREEAM excellence and net zero carbon – with examples of libraries Wright and Wright had developed to these standards. I came away from the talk with an appreciation of how existing libraries can be retrofitted to improve their environmental impact in a manner sympathetic to the original design, as well as some simple tips for making libraries more green without changing the building like opening the windows overnight to passively cool the building.
Finally, I attended Libraries Change Lives which started with a speaker from Suffolk public libraries explaining about a project they had run for young adults to take part in free workshops with local artists. I was impressed by the project’s impact on the community as it had increased the number of young adults visiting public libraries and created a network of local artists. Next, speakers from public affairs consultancy company Inflect gave an overview of the political landscape with the new Labour government and highlighted key ministers for libraries. They also pointed out the opportunity to reset ideas about libraries and advocate for their positive impact. Hearing about a possibly brighter future for public libraries was an uplifting end to the day and I felt that the ideas about identifying key stakeholders for advocacy could also be implemented at an organisational level.
Overall, I learned a lot from the CILIP conference and felt that the variety of talks reflected the major issues that are currently faced by libraries. I enjoyed meeting professionals from other organisations and seeing the products that the vendors had to offer. Many thanks to ARLG for awarding me the bursary
Conference report by Annabelle Michael
Business & Law Subject Librarian at Anglia Ruskin University
