by PRP Group, on 05/02/2024
In the 3 years that I was working as a systems librarian at the New York Law School, I saw the final stages of an information shift from research using printed materials to research that was primarily online. In this environment, sales of 3" x 5" notecards fell dramatically, as students looked for new tools to organize their material. I tried to ease the culture shock in this changing world by making our online catalogs more efficient in providing access to the digital materials the students needed and using transaction log analysis to see how they went wrong. It was the biggest revolution in information since the Gutenberg press, and I was proud to be a small part of this shift.
Little did I dream that a second revolution was in the works. As I am now retired from the academic library world, I can see it from the sidelines, as artificial intelligence (AI) finds its way into libraries to both enhance their mission and complicate their existence.