Category Archives: Conference reports

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

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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.

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

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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 →

SCURL Conference 2025: increasing inclusion

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To add to our recent schedule of conference reports, last month several members of our

A large glass fronted building with unusual irregular striped windows stands proud against a blue sky. The building looks to be cube shaped and sits behind a grass lawn.

The ‘Sir Duncan Rice Library’, University of Aberdeen by Stanley Howe, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

team attend the Scottish Confederation of University & Research Libraries (SCURL) Conference on the 19th of June, which took place in the striking Duncan Rice Library at the University of Aberdeen.

We were delighted to see that the conference had such an interesting programme focused on the great work member teams are doing across the country to promote inclusivity and diversity of access. Sessions included topics such as ‘Radical Hospitality: how can academic libraries support seekers of refuge?’ and ‘Higher Education librarians and social class background’. There were poster presentations from various member libraries taking action in their own settings, and keynotes from Dr Rachel Shanks, Interdisciplinary Director for Social Inclusion and Cultural Diversity at the University of Aberdeen as well as Beth Hellen-Montague, Head of Library & Information Services, The Frances Crick Institute and author of Practical Tips for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in Libraries (which is available as an ebook via DiscoverEd).

While all the talks were valuable, Beth spoke very knowledgeably on the practical work of becoming an EDI focused librarian, and while much of what she had to say regarding taking action (that all actions help, we don’t need one person doing inclusion perfectly but rather to take advantage of the positions, groups and access we already have), she also introduced new-to-us concepts such as the Academic Wheel of Privilege which we plan to consider in our future work. This can help us in making assessments regarding building our collections, but also how we approach the cultures around our educational systems and student backgrounds. It also links directly to the work Darren Flynn discussed in his session on social class in academic librarianship.

For more information about the Academic Wheel of Privilege and how it can be used for research, see the FORRT website.

We love to see a strong EDI strand in any conference we attend, and look forward to bringing our learnings from this event to discussions at our ASL EDI group and the wider L&UC EDI network too.

SarahLouise McDonald & Rania Karoula 
Academic Support Librarians

Approaching critical library practice : CALC25

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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.

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

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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.

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

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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

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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.

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Report from the annual LILAC information literacy conference

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Between 25-27 March a host of librarians from across the globe descended on Leeds Beckett University for the annual LILAC information literacy conference. Information literacy is a key concept in the work of the Academic Support Librarians, covering all the skills that we teach, from referencing through to critical thinking. Here are our key takeaways from three days of keynotes, workshops, and poster presentations.

AI, AI, and more AI

As you might imagine AI featured heavily across the conference. The keynote on the first day was framed as a Q&A between the audience and four information professionals on the topic “Artificial Intelligence and Information Literacy: Seismic Shift or Passing Fad?”. The discussion  brought up some interesting ideas, including:

  • AI as a chance for us to take information literacy teaching to a new level, as the bias within AI generated content and training data is the same biases present in the literary canon and the majority of academic and scientific content. It’s the same challenges but at a greater amount/speed and possibly people are more aware of it.
  • We need to be aware of the “hype cycle” of AI adoption, acknowledge that we are all learning together about AI, and be more comfortable living in a messy world and working with others to find a way forward – we need to be able to adapt and apply the skills we learn to new things and we can apply the principles of information literacy to this new technology.
  • AI can only be a great leveller if everyone is digitally literate. Should libraries subscribe to AI models to increase access for all students?
  • It’s important to consider the context in which AI is being used and the existing digital skills of the students and staff using it. It may be necessary to establish a foundation of digital literacy skills first and then layer additional skills building up to using AI. Also, there may be significant disciplinary differences in ways of using AI, so support and guidance may need to be tailored.
  • In response to a question about the potential of AI to disrupt traditional research practices, the power of AI to make sense of unstructured research data, e.g., transcribing audio data, translation and providing metadata summaries, was mentioned, along with the need to open up support structures in universities to enable AI specialists to train researchers. A good question to ask yourself: Are you using AI to help you work better or using it to cut corners? This is a key question (although not the only one) when considering whether use of AI is cheating or not.

 

Additional sessions on the first day also focussed on AI and information literacy and libraries. We heard from Emily Dott and Terry Charlton from the Library and the Learning and Teaching Development Service at Newcastle University who presented their work in developing the University’s approach to AI literacy. They spoke about the institutional AI journey over 2022 to 2024, including: growing awareness about the potential impact of AI on education; the launch of guidance resources; developing and running workshops; editing their existing information literacy framework to align with AI literacy; launching new resources; and planning future developments. They highlighted Newcastle’s principle-led approach to AI and work on developing collaborative models for working with academic staff and students and defining AI literacy alongside IL literacy. Guidance and learning materials for students and academic colleagues were also showcased, including the AI and Your Learning website and AI for Learning Canvas course.

Erin Nephin from Leeds Beckett University gave an overview of the Library Academic Team’s work over the last year in playing a key role in developing the University’s guidance and principles on AI. Erin outlined how the team have updated their academic integrity module and referencing guidance and developed sessions for professional services and academic staff. The collaborative nature of this work with colleagues in Academic Quality Enhancement, Academic Integrity Leads, the Centre for Teaching and Learning, Library and Student Services, and the Students’ Union Advice Services was emphasised.

Erin highlighted the University’s pragmatic view of AI technologies as here to stay and needing a user education that focusses on ethical and responsible use. The focus of information literacy (IL) teaching at Leeds Beckett is very much on how AI tools work, particularly in information IL contexts such as misinformation, privacy/IP, and ethics, rather than how to use them. The success of teaching and guidance has been largely measured through post-session feedback. Key impacts of the work so far have been in incorporating IL more overtly into all teaching sessions and materials, improving staff understanding of IL and AI, information sharing, and building collaborations. Erin also recommended several sources of support, including the JISC National Centre for AI, ALDinHE AI Forum and Community of Practice, ILFA AI Special Interest Group, and AI4LAM community. On the Tuesday we had a keynote from the inspiring Maha Bali. She focused on critical AI literacy and what this might look like. For her, critical AI literacy will also be contextual, differing depending on the student, the discipline, the location etc. That said, her basic model argues that everyone should:

  • Understand how it works
  • Asses appropriate use
  • Craft effective prompts
  • Recognize inequalities and biases
  • Examine ethical issues

 

She provided lots of links and resources to investigate further but we will definitely be incorporating some of her ideas into the teaching we do around use of generative AI in HE. A commitment to Open Educational Resources and sharing of material was also prevalent throughout the conference (and the librarian community more generally). For example, instructional designers from Ohio State University shared details of their online course around AI and information literacy, particularly how they used scaffolded assignments, and we will be considering how we can deliver something similar.

 

Topics other than AI still exist

Despite the prevalence of AI, there were plenty of sessions on other topics. Examples include a discussion of information literacy links with employability and how this can help encourage engagement, consideration of how we could deliver more staff-focused training on information literacy and using an informed learning design model for teaching.  There were also some interesting talks about new-to-me research methods, such as photovoice and narrative inquiry, which can be used to understand individual’s experiences in a more experiential way.

A really interesting talk from the final day related to encouraging help-seeking behaviour at the same time as supporting students through transition periods at university. Beth Black of Ohio State University talked about the creation of an innovative online course aimed at new undergraduate students. The course uses scenarios based on the real experiences of other students to help students understand the support available, to encourage them to access it, and also to help them see that they are not alone in the issues they face. When they analysed retention rates, they saw that students who had completed this course were more like to stay on at university, showing the value of this approach for students and the university.

If you would like to see the slides from this and previous year’s conference, they are available on the LILAC Slideshare account.

LILAC Slideshare

Anna Richards & Robert O’Brien, Academic Support Librarians

 

AI, Theological Libraries … and me

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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

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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 →