Librarian Futures
Librarian Futures is a series of whitepapers that explore librarian-patron relationships in the digital age.
Librarian Futures Part IV:
Librarian Leadership on the AI Frontier
This new report investigates the question: what can student and librarian perspectives tell us about the role of AI in higher education tell us about librarian leadership in this new frontier?
The report explores how artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping the academic research journey—and the vital role librarians can play in guiding its responsible use. Drawing on global surveys of over 1,000 students and 300 librarians, the findings uncover a complex relationship between confidence, capability, and trust in the academic use of AI. Namely, the complementary skills librarians can develop in order to ensure that the library is seen as an authoritative voice on AI.
KEY FINDINGS:
- Over half of students report using AI tools like ChatGPT in their research, but just 8% said their librarians supported them in their use of AI.
- Despite this, student trust in librarians remains high, with more than half saying they’d feel more confident using AI tools if recommended by their librarian.
- Students cite uncertainty around academic integrity as a reason for hesitating to use AI in deeper ways.
- 27% of students wouldn’t look to anyone at their institution for AI guidance—more than those who would turn to a librarian (17%).
Librarian Futures Part III:
The Librarian Skills Landscape
Our second Librarian Futures report asked the question: How can academic libraries be more deeply involved in the undergraduate learning journey? This new report, in partnership with Skilltype, explores the emerging skills required to fulfil a library’s mission – in a decade shaped by social, political, and technological change – and meet the needs of today’s library patrons. We gathered global perspectives from over 2,000 academic library professionals, from frontline librarians to library directors, to ensure a representative set of insights for the report.
KEY FINDINGS:
- Librarians have a great deal of confidence in their ability to serve patrons, but less than half agreed that they feel confident in advancing their career.
- Many librarians (37%) feel unprepared to answer patron questions on the use of generative AI in their studies.
- Less than 20% of librarians feel that their effort to learn new skills is appreciated by students.
Librarian Futures Part II:
The Knowledge Gap Between Librarians and Students
In 2021, our inaugural Librarian Futures Report revealed areas of misalignment between the support and resources prioritized by the library compared to the areas most appreciated by patrons based on a largescale survey of librarians and their patrons. To build a more detailed picture, we commissioned a student-led research project in 2022, seeking to better understand student perspectives on the university experience, and more specifically, resource and reading lists for the classroom.
KEY FINDINGS:
- There is a knowledge gap between what students need from their learning experience in the classroom and what is offered to them through the library.
- Just 12% of students identified that they had taken part in training on information literacy, even though there has never been a more critical skill for students to develop.
- 75% of students did not see librarians as helping them to get access to resources, and the majority of students still see the library as a building and a collection, placing them at odds with the librarian’s perception of themselves.
Librarian Futures Part I:
Librarian Futures: Charting librarian-patron behaviours and relationships in the networked digital age.
What does the future hold for the librarian-patron relationship? Based on a large-scale survey of 4,000 librarians and patrons, Librarian Futures examines librarian-patron workflows and relationships. It builds on previous research into the future of the library, positioning the librarian at the center of the analysis. Examining current trends in librarian-patron interactions and understanding, the report poses “innovation provocations” to help provide a glimpse into the future.
KEY FINDINGS:
- A knowledge gap exists between patrons and the full extent of librarian support available to them, and between librarians and the emerging needs of their patrons. The paper examines how this knowledge gap may be contributing to perceptions of the diminishing importance of the librarian to the patron experience.
- 79% of faculty and 74% of students now begin their discovery process outside the library, on websites such as Google Scholar, but appreciation and use of library services remain high.
- Librarians are highly appreciated by their patrons, significantly more so than librarians anticipated.
- 84% of faculty patrons appreciate librarians’ ‘a lot’ or ‘a great deal’.
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