Author Archives: cloverodgers

What AI did next : exploring AI’s role in European theological libraries

Posted on by
Reply

BETH conference poster

I was privileged to attend the BETH = Bibliotheques Europeennes de Theologie conference in Stavanger, Norway, 20-23 September 2025, which had the theme of exploring AI’s role in Theological libraries. I really appreciated the practical nature of many of the papers in this conference, which highlighted projects and processes using AI that had been implemented in libraries. I also felt that there was also a second theme or undercurrent, that of highlighting the human value of libraries and the books they contain.

View down into Stavanger

View down into Stavanger

Before we dived into AI, there was a walking tour of Stavanger, starting at Stavanger Cathedral, the oldest cathedral in Norway at 900 years old. Stavanger is located in what is known as the ‘Bible Belt’ of west and south Norway, and used to be called the mission city of Norway because it sent out so many missionaries. I was impressed by several richly detailed epitaphs with paintings of the deceased with their family. Our tour also took in St Peter’s Church, a more ‘regular’ Norwegian church, where a rehearsing worship band created an atmospheric visit. Our last ‘church stop’ was at a historic ‘prayer house’, an upstairs room used as a meeting room by non-conformist churches that sprang up after the Dissenter Act in 1845 allowed Christian gatherings other than the established Church of Norway. Today it is used as a youth church meeting place by the Church of Norway. Our tour took in Stavanger’s streets of painted wooden houses, harbour and hilltop views. We ended up at the conference location, VID Specialised University, where we were greeted by lovely Norwegian waffles and coffee.

Historic epitaph, Stavanger Cathedral

The first day of the conference closed with a film showing of Le Poids des livres : la bibliothèque de Port-Royal. In preparation for the Bibliothèque de Port-Royal’s move to new premises in 2022-23, two filmmakers, Camille de Chenay and Adrien Pierre, followed the life of the library for six years. The documentary film that resulted is a love song to the library and a powerful piece of advocacy about the value of the library and the human stories it holds and creates. It’s not currently available on YouTube as it’s being shown at film festivals but it should be in the future – I really recommend that you watch it!

Historic Mission school building, VID Specialized University

Hannah Pope from VID Specialised University kicked off the papers about AI by exploring the role of the librarian. She suggested that we may feel saturated by suggestions about AI, and be struggling between knowing that it is important but also hearing that it is problematic. AI is a tool – or rather, a whole bunch of them – but the difficulty is that we may not be able to pick up and put down that tool at will. It’s appearing all the time in our environment, in a “gold rush” of AI not necessarily in our control.  Ignoring AI is no longer an option. We are still in the early stages of understanding AI, and it is similar to the advent of the World Wide Web, so it could be argued “That all turned out fine.” But AI – Gen AI – is an explosion, of bots, deep fakes, and disinformation. Often in the library we’re expected to be ambassadors for AI, but often conversations around AI lack nuance and understanding of the complexities – there is a role for the information professional here. Librarians are ideally positioned to have a foot in both camps, to challenge and adopt.

Continue reading →

What we learned from our conferences : Academic Support Librarians and professional engagement

Posted on by
Reply
Conference attendees in a classroom look at a presentation

At the RLUK Conference, 2025

The Academic Support Librarians are a learning team, who have attended professional development events in line with the prioritised themes in our team workplan. Ishbel Leggat attended the RLUK conference in Liverpool in March, where she learned  “how colleagues at other institutions are embedding AI skills into the curriculum, how Generative AI is changing the HE landscape and how AI could be used to optimise library-related working practices”. The AI theme in our workplan was also explored by Anna Richards at the BIALL (British and Irish Association of Law Librarians) conference, with a view on how AI tools are being used in legal practice and library-led support. Jane Furness attended the CALC online conference in May which enabled her to “build my ability to contribute to and support the work of the ASL EDI group and in my support of ECA students and staff.” In June, SarahLouise MacDonald and Rania Karoula attended the SCURL Conference in Aberdeen which had an EDI focus, where they learned about “new avenues for research based on relevant presentations (specifically on radical hospitality and supporting diverse communities).” And Ruth Jenkins attended the LILAC Library Information Literacy conference in Cardiff, bringing back notes that were shared with team colleagues “… who picked up on different talks and themes so our conversations were different every time.” We share our learning with library colleagues in the ASL blog : https://libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk/asl/  Continue reading →

Approaching critical library practice : CALC25

Posted on by
Reply

Critical Approaches to Libraries Conference poster

I attended the online CALC25 [Critical Approaches to Libraries] Conference from 13 – 15 May 2025. The programme, slides and recordings are available at https://sites.google.com/view/calcconference/calc2025  It was great to see Alice our Strathclyde placement student there too.

As you would expect from a conference on critical librarianship the programme topics were wide-ranging and diverse. Topics included professional identity, slow librarianship, supporting neurodivergent colleagues, information imperialism, and justice-orientated librarianship. I would highly recommend this affordable conference. It is £15 for 3 days and you can choose to donate a £15 entrance fee for another participant who can then attend for free. Most of the sessions were recorded and are on Youtube or the above website.

Continue reading →

Reflections on Attending the BIALL Conference: Exploring AI and Legal Librarianship

Posted on by
Reply
View of students reading in a library on two floors

University of Edinburgh Law Library Senate Room to Mezzanine View with Students

This year, I was lucky enough to attend the British and Irish Association of Law Librarians (BIALL) conference for the very first time—and I hope it won’t be my last! From the moment I arrived, I was struck by how welcoming and friendly the event was. Thanks to the buddy scheme, I connected with librarians from across the profession, opening doors to future opportunities for sharing knowledge and ideas.

One of the big themes at all library conferences this year is Artificial Intelligence (AI), and BIALL was no different. As one of the AI leads in our team, I was keen to learn how AI tools are being used in legal practice and library-led support. The sessions didn’t disappoint.

Continue reading →

Challenges, Changes and Collaborations– American Theological Library Association conference,  Pittsburgh June 18-21 2025

Posted on by
Reply

I was delighted to be invited to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania this year to speak at the Atla 2025 Annual meeting. It’s actually the second time I have been to a library conference in Pittsburgh “the steel city”, the first was to an ARLIS art librarians conference over 20 years ago. This time Pittsburgh was looking very green with cool damp weather, cooler than the June heatwave happening at home in the UK.

Christine on the steps of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary

On the steps of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary

My conference experience began with a visit to Pittsburgh Theological Seminary (PTS)’s Clifford E. Barbour Library. Having just shown a group of PTS Doctor of Ministry students around my library, New College Library, the previous week, I was keen to visit the library of this partner institution. Like New College Library back at the University of Edinburgh, this library had recently been completely decanted for a full refurbishment, with priorities including increased light, improved air conditioning and redeveloped learning and social spaces. This was not the only similarity between PTS’s Library and my own library, which both use Library of Congress classification and support training for Presbyterian ministry. Continue reading →

AI vs the Imago Dei : views from US theological libraries

Posted on by
1

Computer17293866, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

On Tuesday 18 June, I flew half way around the world to attend the Atla conference in Long Beach, California. There were two questions that Atla delegates asked me that I had to pause and think about to answer. The first was ‘Why did you come such a long way to attend this conference?’  (the second was ‘Are you the library director? – well … no.). To answer the first, I was able to attend the Atla 2024 conference due to a generous travel grant from Atla itself, support from BETH (European Theological Libraries) and support from ABTAPL UK & Ireland. I was attending as a UK representative of BETH, but I also wanted to attend because of the unique theological library context, and because attending an international conference is a great learning experience. As at professional development events in the UK, AI dominated the agenda – here are some conference highlights.

Continue reading →

Professional Recognition for Library teaching with the Higher Education Academy

Posted on by
Reply

Ruth Jenkins FHEA

We recently celebrated the success of the latest member of the Academic Support Librarian team to gain Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy, Ruth Jenkins. I caught up with colleagues to find out more about what this qualification means to them. Continue reading →

AI, Theological Libraries … and me

Posted on by
Reply

The University of Edinburgh hosted the Association of British Theological and Philosophical Libraries conference this year at New College on 21-23 March. As usual there was the opportunity for discovering fascinating and historic libraries, including (of course) New College Library, the National Museum of Library of Scotland and the Signet Library.

Computer17293866, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

A key focus this year was Artificial Intelligence or AI, and Prof Nigel Crook from Oxford Brookes University opened the conference, speaking about ‘Generative AI and the Chatbot revolution’, and concluding that while he didn’t predict a future like the one in the Terminator, this couldn’t entirely be ruled out. 😊 Following this was Professor Paul Gooding from the University of Glasgow, with an engaging talk on ‘Applying AI to Library Collections’. He identified a key challenge for libraries as being the control of AI development by a handful of technology firms – the forces driving AI tools are not situated in the library sector. How can libraries play a part in AI innovation? Continue reading →

Meeting the challenges facing ecclesiastical libraries

Posted on by
Reply

BETH are a European group of national organisations representing librarians working in theological college, seminary, Church and monastic libraries. Solo librarians or librarians working in small teams are characteristic of their membership, although there is also representation from University libraries. I attended their conference on the theme of Challenges facing ecclesiastical libraries in Cordoba, Spain on 30/9/23-4/10/23, to share a paper about partnership working between Church and University in New College Library.

Cordoba BETH Conference 2023

BETH Conference 2023

What are the challenges for ecclesiastical libraries?

A number of recurring challenges were underlying themes for the conference.

  1. The decline in religious vocations and in church membership and attendance, which is also linked to a decline in available funding for church libraries, as funding must come from a diminishing church populace.
  2. The effects of war, military action and other political and social conflicts.
  3. Delivering professional management of historic collections under both of these circumstances with the particular needs and financial demands of historic and rare collections.

How can ecclesiastical libraries be successful in avoiding crisis and collapse? Continue reading →

Artificial Intelligence : where does it fit into library strategy?

Posted on by
Reply
Metal sign outside the Main Library, taken from a low angle at the bottom of the stairs. The word Library is spelled out in silver coloured letters mounted on a large stone wall.

UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH CENTRAL CAMPUS, LIBRARY.

Everybody’s talking about AI and Chat GPT – what will they mean? I attended an event on 20.4.2023 organised by the Information School Sheffield University which explored this question for libraries.

Dr Andrew Cox introduced the session, reminding us that chatbots & AI have featured heavily in the news recently, and of course have existed in scifi for some time.

What might AI look like in the library?

From what we’ve learnt about AI it will have a wide and deep impact on library service and backend operations and library information literacy. We’ll see new features like library chatbots, text and datamining support and automation of systematic reviews. Knowledge discovery of collections will change, with a new paradigm of search : instead of giving a list of results, ChatGPT will give an answer. Users expectations of what a search looks like will change dramatically. There may be an impact on library jobs (although the decline of the librarian has been forecast for many years since the arrival of the internet, and librarians have evolved and thrived). Changes to the workforce will probably be complex and driven by sector.

Fundamentally we should remember that AI is only as good as the data it relies upon. Our library expertise in finding and managing data in a complex information landscape, and in determining the provenance and quality of data remains key. Also, libraries’ work in supporting sharing, openness and interoperability of data is vital as this data becomes available for AI to use.

Continue reading →