Artificial Intelligence and Robots for the Library and Information Professions

We are very excited to present this year’s special issue of the Journal of the Australian Library and Information Association (JALIA) on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Robots for the Library and Information Professions. This issue brings together five research papers and a research-in-practice paper on various aspects of AI and robots with specific implications for their use in Library and Information Science.

The last few years have seen a wave of excitement and hype around AI and robots and their potential to create, according to some, a Fourth Industrial Revolution. This seems to have touched every sector of work from agriculture and retail, through to scientific research. The need for AI in health applications has been accelerated by COVID 19. Yet there are also strong public concerns about the ethics and responsible design and use of such automation (Jobin et al., 2019). It is also important to recognise that the application of AI in consumer technology creates an industrial complex based on intensive (perhaps unsustainable) use of energy, raw materials, and often low paid labour (Crawford, 2021).

Libraries and information services, like every other sector, are likely to be changed, even transformed, by AI and robots (Cox, 2021). In many ways they are already being reshaped by AI in search and recommendation, with their implications for data and AI literacy. As user contexts change through AI, LIS roles supporting them will have to alter too. For example, new uses in scientific research will impact scholarly communication and how it is supported (Jones et al., 2019).

Some library and information services are already using AI in their operations, specifically machine learning technologies for tasks such as automated clustering and classification of resources, discovering and linking collections, and weeding collections (Cordell, 2020), the use of robots in book retrieval (McCaffrey, 2021), the use of chatbots and voice assistants for university library services (Mckie & Narayan, 2019; Hopkins & Maccabee 2018), and in learning and teaching in schools and public libraries (Nguyen, 2020). Libraries are using AI to take advantage of big data and data analytics both in their operational and service-oriented aspects (Garoufallou & Gaitanou, 2021).

Wider societal concerns remain about the ethics of AI and robots around their potential impact on user privacy, freedom of expression, the risk of bias, and loss of transparency in decision making (Cordell, 2020; Padilla, 2019). There are fundamental questions about the impacts on human agency, as well as the direct impacts on work and jobs, including those of information professionals. We should also take pause to reflect critically about how discourses of technological solutionism such as those commonly found around AI and robots impact LIS thinking (Mirza & Seale, 2017). Developed responsibly AI does have the potential to increase access to knowledge and so it is vital that the profession develop a measured response to the opportunities and challenges AI and robots offer, including building educational opportunities for LIS students to learn about them within their curriculum. The papers collected in this special issue contribute to this discourse.

The first two research papers delve into the ethical implications of AI and related technologies, with special implications for libraries, whilst the next two research papers are based on empirical studies of chatbots and voicebots in both academic and non-academic settings and aim to inform chatbot developers about users’ experiences and the need for improvements. The last research paper evaluates the LIS curriculum in Australian educational institutions in regard to how they frame AI and related technologies.

Moving on to the individual papers in this issue, Bradley (2022) details how library activities such as research literature searching, language tools for textual analysis, and access to collection data are represented in national AI plans, and ways that libraries have engaged with other aspects of AI regulation including the development of ethical frameworks. The paper also suggests a way forward for ethical, trustworthy, and transparent AI. They suggest that when considering how AI might be responsibly applied in the work of information professionals, it is essential to engage with the range of ethical concerns which have arisen around the design and adoption of such technologies. Professional codes of ethics can offer high level guidance. Cox (2022) describes the development of eight ethical scenarios that seek to instantiate the issues in a relatable and open-ended way.

Kaushal and Yadav (2022) undertook an extensive qualitative interview study of research stakeholders within Indian universities including librarians, professors, and doctoral students, and found that integrating chatbot technology with an existing library information system has the potential to deliver diverse services, which in turn would help in research and scholarly communication. However, perceived risk with respect to employing chatbots among stakeholders was high, and many raised concerns with respect to privacy intrusion, and in understanding task complexity, which library chatbot developers need to take into account.

Long-term users of voicebots within domestic settings were studied by McKie et al. (2022), who draw a parallel between information behaviour studies and how the humanness of voice assistants and their perceived personality affect information retrieval, including the difficulties in transitioning from text-based information seeking to speech-based interactions. They make a case for expanding human information behaviour studies to include interactive conversational information retrieval devices such as voice assistants.

The final research paper by Tait and Pierson (2022) is a review of curricula across five ALIA-accredited courses in Australia seeking to identify the framing of digital technologies and related themes. They found that while several courses do cover managerial or ethical dimensions of emergent technologies, only one subject directly mentioned AI as part of its subject content, while none mentioned robotics. Significant opportunities exist for Australian LIS education to help frame the profession as a leading force at the intersection of human information behaviour, information ethics, and responsible development and use of AI and robots. Seizing the opportunities detailed in the full paper will help to ensure a valuable role for LIS in an AI-enabled future.

The research-in-practice paper by Grbin (2022) describes a collaborative project at Deakin University to develop a semi-automated ‘living’ literature review system. Living reviews are an alternative to traditional systematic reviews, with the aim of continually incorporating and synthesising new research evidence as it becomes available. Library staff were part of a multidisciplinary team which piloted a machine learning system that semi-automates article screening and information synthesis. The authors showcase the value of librarian involvement in the creation and exploration of automation tools. Librarians, as information specialists, should be encouraged and supported to engage with researchers and add value to machine learning projects.

These papers together demonstrate the potential for AI and robotics to contribute to the digital transformation of library and information science. Consequently, it is critical for LIS educators and professionals to contribute to discussions within professional education and practice.

Rounding out the special issue, we have 7 book reviews. One relates to this issue’s special topic (The rise of AI: implications and applications of artificial intelligence in academic libraries, reviewed by Andrew Cox).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.