Libfocus Link-out for May 2026

Welcome to the May edition of the Libfocus link-out, an assemblage of library-related things we have found informative, educational, thought-provoking and insightful on the Web over the past while.

Stitching History Together: The University of Nebraska–Lincoln’s Quilt Research Collections and the International Quilt Museum.
Ella Shoenberger looks at the Quilt Research Collections at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries and its relationship to the International Quilt Museum.

Observing Collections a Micron at a Time: A Tools of the Trade Post.
As part of Library of Congress’s Tools of the Trade series, Megan Zins introduces us to how microscopy is used in preservation and conservation.

Cork public library set for Counting House complex after €35m purchase.
A new public library for Cork city is set to open in the restored Counting House complex on South Main Street, with plans for expanded study, cultural, music, and community spaces in a landmark €35m redevelopment project.

Decolonizing the Community-Centered Library: Making Way for Radical, Decolonized Librarianship.
Edgardo Civallero explores how libraries can move beyond “neutral” institutional models to become collaborative, community-led spaces that centre marginalised voices, local knowledge, and social justice.

From Open Access to Preprints: Are We Repeating the Same Mistakes in Scholarly Publishing?
In this Guest Post on the Scholarly Kitchen blog, Jonny Coates argues that the next few years will prove pivotal in determining whether preprints become a stable part of the scholarly ecosystem or drift into the same patterns of fragmentation and inequity that have complicated the open access transition.

Big publishers are ripping off our public libraries.
Barry Andrews reports in the Irish Examiner that the public library model is in danger due to extortionate pricing and licensing terms for the lending of e-books by major commercial publishers.

Lost copy of seventh-century poem in Old English discovered at Rome library.
In this article for The Guardian, Rory Carroll describes the discovery of the earliest surviving poem in the English language by two scholars from Trinity College Dublin.

University Libraries names first Indigenous Knowledges faculty librarian.
Katie Randall has become the first Indigenous Knowledges Librarian in The University Libraries at CU Boulder. She speaks about how her role aims to build a more inclusive and accurate understanding of the histories and futures studied in the University.

“We’re Good at Search”… Just Not the Kind That the AI era Demands - a Provocation.
Aaron Tay reflects on how a lot of us (librarians) struggle with the impact of AI on search.

The AI detection delusion.
James O'Sullivan hits the nail on the head! “...the solution to one form of technological recklessness cannot be another. Detection tools give their users the feeling of objective certainty while delivering probabilistic guesses, and in doing so, they can cause real harm to real people — students who lose marks or face disciplinary action, professionals whose reputations are damaged, and writers whose command of English is held against them by an algorithm that mistakes simplicity for artificiality.”

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What does Librarianship mean to A&SL Conference attendees? A summary of thoughts

Guest post Stephanie Chen, Learning and Teaching Librarian, Academic Services, UCC Library

For the A&SL 2026 conference, I facilitated a session titled: “What does Librarianship mean to you? Putting your values into practice.” This was neither a presentation nor a case study and could easily have been a dud so I do want to extend a massive thank you to the conference organisers for being open to including this in the programme and to all the attendees for participating. 

My aim for this session was to give attendees an opportunity to reflect on themes from previous sessions and, importantly, to give them a space to reflect on their own values and personal understanding of librarianship through participation in online polls, Padlet, and individual reflections.  

This blog post brings together the responses shared from attendees during the session. I have also included the questions and activities used, along with some context, for those who were unable to attend. If you would like to work through the questions and activities yourself, please know there are no right or wrong answers. 

Professional Values 

I began the session by introducing values. Values can exist at multiple levels: societal, values of the community and users libraries serve, our own personal values, and professional values. For the purposes of the exercises, I asked attendees to try and focus specifically on their professional values. Examples of professional values include Gorman’s enduring values (stewardship, service, intellectual freedom, rationalism, literacy and learning, equity of access to recorded knowledge and information, privacy, democracy) and Lankes’ new librarianship (service, learning, openness, intellectual freedom and safety, intellectual honesty). 

To help attendees get into a reflective mindset and identify a professional value, I asked them to complete the following exercise: 

Think of a time when you felt proud of your work or a sense of achievement in work. What was the situation, what did you do? What was the underlying value.

Attendees were asked to share this underlying value in an online poll. 

Here is a word cloud of what was submitted: 

 Broadly speaking, responses could be categorised into the following themes: 

• Service
• Connection and collaboration
• EDI (Equity, Diversity, and inclusion)
• Access and openness 
• Learning and development 

The next exercise explored how strongly attendees related to professional codes of ethics from various library associations. While some associations do have explicit statements of professional values, most do not and instead have professional codes relating to ethics or conduct. An analysis of 60 code of ethics sourced from the IFLA website revealed the following broad values:

• user service & quality
• objectivity & impartiality
• privacy & confidentiality
• intellectual freedom & anti-censorship
• professional integrity & ethics
• access to information
• social responsibility
• cultural & heritage preservation
• equity & non-discrimination
• professional development

 

Values from Library Associations

The majority of attendees did relate to these values, although for a number of attendees, there does appear to be a disconnect. 

To try and explore this further, I asked attendees to engage in a sorting exercise in Padlet. From the list of values from library associations, attendees could sort these into four columns: non-negotiable values, important but flexible, aspirational values, and not important to me at all. 

Access to information and user service appeared most often as a non-negotiable value while professional development was typically viewed as being important but flexible. 

Some values, like social responsibility and cultural and heritage preservation, appeared in multiple columns. This demonstrates values do not always align between individuals and other values will take priority. 

While code of ethics can help articulate shared expectations, they can also fail to address any tensions in values, especially when our own values do not align with what these codes might say. When such conflicts arise, there is rarely an easy solution. However, I would suggest understanding our own values and reflecting on where we place importance and priority can act as a useful guide. 

Values into practice 

To give attendees something practical to take away from the session, I asked attendees to consciously foreground one value they wanted to put into practice. With this one value in mind, I asked them to consider the following: 

• One tiny action I can take next week 
• One medium-scale change I can influence this year (project, service, policy)
• One big/aspirational change I’d love to see 

Attendees were invited to share their actions on a Padlet if they were comfortable doing so. Some of the smaller actions that emerged included checking in with fellow colleagues, prioritising staff wellbeing, and approaching work with more intentional positivity. Medium-term actions focused on increasing open access, improving practices, advocacy for librarianship, and professional development. Finally, some aspirational changes from attendees centred around achieving 100% open access, starting new initiatives, and the development of new library spaces or even a new library building (a hope many of us can probably relate to!)  

Defining librarianship

To conclude the session, I asked attendees to reflect on a final question: What does it mean to be a librarian today?

I asked attendees to complete the sentence: Librarianship is…

While many responses were positive, framing librarianship as essential and even “badass”, it’s important to also acknowledge the complexity involved in the profession, as highlighted by some attendees: “Being a Jack of all trades,” “hard work,” and “tiring.” Overall, responses showed librarianship as being a collaborative, people-focused profession centred on sharing knowledge and helping others.

To finish, I’d like to highlight some definitions that personally resonated with me, but I would encourage everyone to view all the responses: 

“Advocating and enabling for social justice and lifelong learning for everyone through collections, spaces, and research”

“Fostering a love of learning new things, while also learning new things yourself”

“A great career – be a contributor not an extractor” 

Acknowledgements

Thank you to the A&SL committee for giving me the opportunity to facilitate this session and thank you to my fellow UCC Library colleagues Ronan Madden, Learning & Teaching Team Lead, and Martin O’Connor, Communications Coordinator, for supporting me in developing the session. 

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Finding Strength in Difference: Reflections from the HSLG Annual Conference 2026

In March 2026, library and information professionals from across Ireland came together for the Health Sciences Libraries Group (HSLG)Annual Conference, held in person and centred on the theme Finding Strength in Difference. As a professional librarian working on behalf of the Irish food and drink industry, the day offered timely insights into how libraries can navigate rapid technological change while staying grounded in human judgement, ethics and collaboration.

Across the programme, speakers explored artificial intelligence (AI), professional identity, collaboration models and visibility. A consistent message emerged: our collective strength lies not in tools alone, but in how we design for connection, build shared understanding and support one another across diverse roles and settings.

Human judgement in an AI ocean

The conference opened with a keynote from Brendan Kelly, Professor of Psychiatry at Trinity College Dublin, who spoke about navigating “an AI ocean” while retaining human responsibility and judgement. He highlighted that while AI can augment decision-making, it introduces four tensions: epistemic (black-box systems), ethical (bias), relational (loss of human connection) and legal (accountability). 

Drawing on how society has historically reacted to new technologies, Kelly argued that panic is understandable but unhelpful. Instead, he advocated for responsible, transparent and human-led use of AI. Accountability, he stressed, always remains with the user, not the tool. Declaring AI use openly and questioning outputs critically are essential steps towards trust. This framing resonated strongly with librarians, whose professional values already centre on evaluation, context and stewardship of information.

Supporting one-person libraries through connection

The challenges faced by solo and small-team libraries were explored by Tony Linnane, Regional Library Manager at the HSE. One person libraries, he noted, develop wide-ranging and highly transferable skills, but often at the cost of professional isolation and increased risk of burnout. 

Rather than relying solely on individual resilience, Linnane emphasised the importance of intentional peer networks and shared practice. He suggested that carefully managed use of generative AI could help ease administrative workloads and service continuity, while human oversight remains central. Crucially, connection to expert networks can reduce isolation and strengthen confidence, particularly for those working alone.

Collaboration as a force multiplier

Collaboration was another strong theme, particularly in a session on HSE Library Partner Organisation collaborations delivered by Niamh Walker Headon, Library Resources Manager at the HSE. She demonstrated how formal consortia models can expand access to high quality resources, improve equity and avoid duplication of effort across organisations. 

The success of these partnerships relies on shared infrastructure, clear agreements and trust built over time. Where licensing limits access, the curation of credible free sources – such as national statistical agencies and expert blogs – can help bridge gaps. This model offers useful lessons for government and semi state bodies seeking to scale knowledge services more sustainably.

Visibility builds value

Several sessions reinforced the idea that impact depends not just on what libraries provide, but on whether people know those services exist. Bennery Rickard, Regional Librarian at the HSE, shared insights from HSE Library Day, a national awareness campaign designed to celebrate library staff and services. 

Human-centred storytelling, early promotion and shared narratives helped increase engagement, pride and visibility across dispersed teams. Key takeaways included planning impact metrics in advance, promoting library spaces as well as collections, and featuring staff voices to make the service relatable. These lessons apply widely, particularly for specialist or embedded library teams seeking to demonstrate value.

Equitable access and awareness

The importance of national infrastructure was further explored in a session on the case for a National eHealth Library for Ireland, presented by Aoife Lawton and Louise Farragher. They argued that removing barriers to trusted information supports lifelong learning and professional development at scale. 

However, access alone is not enough. Many users are unaware of existing resources, highlighting the ongoing need for promotion, training and information literacy. Libraries cannot assume people know what is available or how to use it responsibly; awareness must be continually rebuilt.

Preparing future talent

Mairéad Mc Keown and David Lombard from Bord Bia – The Irish Food Board, reflected on preparing future food industry talent through their graduate Co-Pilot Skills Programme. Their programme was underpinned by adult learning and knowledge management principles. It encouraged a culture of experimentation, critical and creative thinking and community connections 

Social learning, ethical skills and respect for differences were identified as essential foundations for a psychologically safe learning environment. 

Mairéad Mc Keown and David Lombard, Bord Bia, presenting on preparing future talent in the AI era. Picture credit Lauren Sneyd 2026.

AI literacy as a shared community skill

Aphra Kerr, Professor of Digital Media and Communication at University College Dublin, reframed AI literacy not as a technical skill, but as a community capability grounded in dialogue, critical thinking and shared learning.

She highlighted initiatives such as the EU funded ADAPT programme and AlgoWatch, which aim to make algorithms more visible and understandable to the public. Learning by doing – through workshops, labs and discussion – helps demystify AI and builds confidence without panic. These programmes emphasise empowerment over fear and align closely with librarians’ educational roles. 

Key conclusions

Across the day, three clear conclusions emerged:

1. Design for connection first if you want capability to scale and last.
2. Make AI literacy and responsible use a daily habit, not a one‑off training exercise.
3. Visibility and partnerships multiply value, especially in dispersed or specialist settings.

For librarians across different sectors, these insights reaffirm the profession’s role as a connector, guide and critical partner. In a rapidly changing world, our greatest strength remains our collective commitment to people, trust, shared understanding and progress.

Microsoft Co-pilot was used in the brainstorming for this blog post.

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Review of The Academic & Special Libraries Conference 2026

Guest post by Dina Gorelik. Dina is an MLIS Student at University College Dublin

At the end of March, I had the pleasure of attending the LAI Academic and Special Libraries Conference 2026: Reimagining Librarianship: Purpose, Practice, and Possibility as one of the A&SL Bursary recipients. Throughout my MLIS coursework, professors and students have discussed the changing nature of the library profession and the challenges of this time. I was excited to be able to attend the conference to hear from professionals on the ground on what they consider the challenges and core fundamentals of librarianship today, and I was pleasantly surprised with the recurring themes discussed throughout the day, including the importance of reflective practice and using data to justify decision making in libraries and information settings.

The morning keynote speaker, Liz Jolly (University College Cork), set the tone and brought up themes which recurred throughout the day most notably speaking on the importance of reflective practice and relentless optimism as a tool for the onward journey. I was surprised to hear about reflective practice so early in the day; the concept of reflective practice has been an unexpected recurring topic of conversation throughout my MLIS coursework, and its early reference in the day solidified the importance of reflection in my future professional work.

After the morning keynote, there were two parallel sessions, and I chose to attend the one on Open Scholarship, a topic new to me but one I am interested in learning more about. The speakers discussed initiatives in individual universities as well as national initiatives to promote open access scholarship and publishing. Margaret Irons (Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies) and Colm O’Connor (Innopharma Education) were particularly inspiring in their talks on spearheading new projects. Irons spoke about her project to create an open access repository of CELTICA, the publication of the School of Celtic Studies at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. Her internal advocacy began in 2016, and the repository launched in 2025, a reminder that patience and thinking long-term are vital to these sorts of projects. Colm O’Connor also shared a librarian led initiative at Innopharma Education to support student publications. O’Connor identified that students were producing high quality work but were intimidated by traditional academic publishing so he began Innopharma Insights, a journal to highlight the promising student research he was seeing. Now in its second volume, the journal is produced with the available resources of the team; for example, the journal is formatted in-house using Microsoft Word.

The afternoon session had a variety of speakers talking about collections and metadata initiatives, redesigning services, and career reflections. Two speakers spoke about evaluating and reevaluating services at their academic libraries: Genevieve Larkin (Marino Institute of Education) and Francisca Silva (Dublin Business School). Larkin spoke about the development of a five year operational plan to address tensions between the ambitions of library employees versus available resources. She discussed the power of prioritisation in assessing capacity of staff and resources. Silva led the library website redesign project at Dublin Business School. She discussed pulling in user experience and information architecture principles in conducting user research and testing, as well as developing a more cohesive library website layout. I was excited and surprised that these talks solidified the importance of using research and data to demonstrate and justify decision making in libraries, as it has been a recurring topic in my coursework.

Ultimately, I came away inspired by the commitment of professionals to their work, finding ways to serve their users and themselves as thoughtfully, resourcefully, and sustainably as possible. Throughout the day, speakers discussed identifying issues and taking initiative to create something better, often collaborating with colleagues and users to come up with the best solutions. Attendees were open to discussion and chatting with people they did not know, creating a warm and approachable atmosphere throughout the day; I met a lot of lovely librarians and students and left feeling reassured that, despite the uncertainty of the current moment, librarians and information professionals will continue to provide the best service they can, and I am excited to join in the work. The afternoon keynote speaker, Niamh Tumelty (London School of Economics and Political Science), said that she is confident about the future of libraries, and so am I.

Author’s note: Thank you to the Academic and Special Libraries Committee for the bursary to attend the 2026 Conference.

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Libfocus Link-out for April 2026

Welcome to the April edition of the Libfocus link-out, an assemblage of library-related things we have found informative, educational, thought-provoking and insightful on the Web over the past while.

Images featured in this month's link-out posts

Marion Stokes and the Archive of Resistance.
In this blog post, Naomie Tessier-Antoine writes about Marion Stokes’ television archive as a form of media preservation and resistance, highlighting the role of physical media in maintaining an unaltered record of events.

How to Make a Library Promotional Strategy.
In this blog post, Angela Hursh writes about developing a library marketing strategy, focusing on setting clear goals, identifying audiences, using storytelling, and aligning promotion with organisational objectives.

Manipulating the Law: Dismantling the Miller Test and Exploiting the “Government Speech” Doctrine.
In this Bookriot artice, Kelly Jensen and Sarah Lamdan look at how two legal concepts are being misused in the U.S. to make it easier to ban books in public schools and public libraries. The first is the Miller Test. The second, the “government speech” doctrine.

Hachette yanks horror novel Shy Girl from shelves after accusations of AI use.
Hachette Book Group has removed a novel from bookshops in the U.K. following accusations of AI use by the author. Following an investigation, the publishing group concluded that author Mia Ballard used AI to generate large sections of her book 'Shy Girl.'

Hallucinated citations are polluting the scientific literature. What can be done?
Miryam Naddaf & Elizabeth Quill report in Nature that tens of thousands of publications from 2025 might include invalid references generated by AI.

The outputs we don’t count: making talk-based research contributions legible.
Ben Kaube asks in Research Information why research communication is not measured in a similar way to other research outputs.

An Unexpected Influence: Photostats in Special Collections Libraries.
Hannah Alpert-Abrams documents the influence of the introduction of Photostats on Special Collections Libraries since their inception in this Open Access article.

Are LGBTQIA+ Voices Being Pushed Out of Kid Lit?
Marlaina Cockcroft for Student Library Journal looks at how the publishing sector may be quietly rejecting LGBTQIA+ voices, as well as LBGTQIA+ voices self-censoring. An interesting look at how book bans in libraries may be forcing a chance in what is being published before it ever makes a library shelf.

When the archive breaks.
Elissa Malespina looks at why the threat to the Wayback Machine is really about disappearing data and who controls the public record.

Airport libraries take off.
Rosie Newmark highlights the emerging trend of having a public library space within airports stocked with physical books.

Operationalizing Minimal Computing Values Through Shared Computing-Platform Development: A Case Study of DigitalArc and Opaque Publisher.
Kalani Craig, Michelle Dalmau and Sean Purcell explore how minimal computing principles guided the parallel web development of two related but distinct publishing platforms, DigitalArc and Opaque Publisher.

Breaking Down Data Silos: SPARQuLb, An RDF Ecosystem to Mutualize Humanities Research Projects Needs.
Sébastien de Valeriola and Anthony Leroy present an original solution to effectively managing structured data collected or produced as part of their humanities research projects.

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The Lower Decks 2.0: A Symposium on Janeway and Open Access Publishing: 21–22 May 2026 at DCU Library

This entry connects to an earlier post from 26th September 2025.

Janeway is an open-source scholarly publishing platform that has become the software of choice for editors, librarians, and publishers at universities worldwide. Our inaugural 2023 symposium celebrated the Janeway team's tenth anniversary; this second event broadens that scope to explore how users and community inform Janeway's development.

Co-organised by the Open Library of Humanities, Michigan Publishing Services, and Dublin City University Library, The Lower Decks 2.0 brings together the Janeway community in the historic city of Dublin to explore how real, idiosyncratic scholarly communities helped establish the platform and continue to shape its direction. Presentations address users and user experience, alongside updates, innovations, and use cases from institutions worldwide.

The symposium programme is now published and available here.

 

 

 

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