Beyond the Horizon 2024: Emerging Issues

We're delighted to share this write up of the Beyond the Horizon 2024 conference held in May 2024. Thanks to Dr Chidinma Onwuchekwa Ogba for sharing their experience of the day

Beyond  the Horizon 2024: Emerging Issues

The North-East group of CILIP (NECILIP) held their annual online conference “Beyond the Horizon” on the 20th of May 2024. This was a half-day event that focussed on major topics like: Building connections: a personalised Library welcome for academic and research staff;  Copyright and AI;  don’t touch my hair; knowledge in the shadows; getting started right away: experience, reflections and the impact of delivering an essay writing skills module; North-east school Librarians network; reimagining the academic Librarian’s role at Cardiff Metropolitan University; there’s more to life than books you know; and Pathways - a journey into the centre of libraries. NECILIP which is an arm of CILIP centred in the Northeast region of England annually organises this conference to keep its members updated on emerging issues and best practises around them.

The event started immediately at 1pm with a welcome note from the chair of the event, Dr Biddy Casselden, from Northumbria University. Dr Biddy informed participants that she is retiring this summer and is stepping down from hosting Beyond the Horizon conferences and from the CILIP NE committee after a long involvement in CILIP. Dr Biddy would surely be missed because of the ease and laughter she brings in while chairing and many other qualities which have been seen reflecting through her.

The conference started with a short talk from Nicki Clarkson of the University of Southampton. Nicki talked about building connections through a personalized library welcome for academic and research staff. It was realised that while there were welcome activities for students, many libraries do not intentionally provide any for new academics. It was therefore important to reach out to them through any formalised medium and give them support in settling down. This move was seen as a means of building connections, providing Library services, and initiating a future synergy that would benefit students and staff; as a result, the library would need to ensure that they are formally informed when new academic staff  are employed.

Liesl Rowe immediately took over and talked about “Copyright and AI”. This was a talk about AI with a different perspective on its merits and demerits. Artificial intelligence (AI) was seen to have its strengths in following classic essay prompts, analysing specific excerpts, and producing references that look superficially convincing and yet misleading. AI was seen to be poor in case studies, information retrieval, empirical assessment and lacks the ability to state strong conclusions. It also lacks the ability to seek for permission before using copyrighted resources; and as a result, is immersed in major copyright issues. It’s inability to have copyright of any resource and cannot have copyright on its own means that it’s misleading to cite it as an author of a work used [my thoughts]. More so, it was stated to constantly hallucinate; a major issue that would make anyone using it for research purposes to reconsider. Except if an academia intends getting concepts, keywords and ideas that would lead to a critical search, using AI for purpose of research and learning is misleading [my thoughts]. Maybe this stance would change in the future if its developers were able to address these issues and more as it relates to copyright. As a result of its diverse complications that relates to using resources without permission, scholars were advised not to send their copyrighted documents to AI for whatever purpose or assistance, this is because it has inbuilt ability to retain information and to reuse them as it deems fit; without the assurance that the author would be recognised; hence it breaks every provision of copyright. This has a major implication for the academic library, which is to take seriously, the teaching of information literacy for learning and research.

Naomi Smith talked briefly about “Don’t touch my hair: hair microgressions in the library”. This talk focussed on empirical research carried out on librarians from African origin. The research pointed at the character of putting focus and attention on African hair, which is no different from any other hair; and most times, touching indiscriminately and making comments that likens it to a pet, as being demeaning and undignifying. Moreso, it becomes a reminder to humiliations faced historically by African women who were placed in the same category as animals for sightseeing because of their looks; and hence a thing of pain. If the hair of other people of different origin does not attract such attention and comments, it then becomes a wonder on how black hair would arouse such sentiment even in a professional environment [my thoughts].  

Daniel Lyons talked about “Knowledge in the shadows: the shadow organisations and why it is important”. This centred around recognising innate skills in employees and horning them for their development and that of their employers. Hence when skillsets are identified in an organisation, it should be connected to the right roles and jobs; and linked to places where they would satisfy need.

Lisa Eveson talked about their library experience in delivering an essay writing skills module for students. The writing module was said to be impactful as students registered; and their lecturers who noticed the improvement in their students ensured that other students registered as well. Challenges that were found in the process were as it relates to getting an expert with a writing and study skills background, and the fact that students were not so much interested in completing activities because they will rather devote that time to modules that have assigned credits. Immediately after the second comfort break, Jackie Dunn from the Newcastle University talked about the Northeast School Librarians Network and the need for many librarians to get involved in the Community of Practice. It was to be an avenue of developing together and supporting school librarians.

Aimee Jones and Marie Lancaster talked about “Reimagining the academic role at Cardiff Metropolitan University”. This was another short talk that explained how roles were reimagined and their titles changed. Roles were reimagined to fit into new job titles; and since the strengths and limitations of library staff were already known, it was easy to assign them to their new titles and broadened roles. Hence several job roles that have similarity and can be handled by a person were brought together; thereby preventing wastage and ensuring that every job is attended to.

Lisa Anderson and James Bywater talked about “Pathways, a journey into the centre of Libraries”. This focussed on how library services can constantly emerge to suit needs of students; and ways of responding to their unspoken needs just by imagining those needs and providing services in response; services that would not always have to shout “LIBRARY, BOOKS” but those that attract them and still educate and develop their skills. Sarah Munks talked about “There’s more to life than books…”. This talk focussed on book clubs constantly organised for primary school teachers as a way of training them in the act of reading children’s books for the purpose of education.

Dr Chidinma Onwuchekwa Ogba
Teaching & Learning Librarian
QA Higher Education