ALN Exploring AI in Academic Libraries by

Example - Text of question here - [you can direct it to a specific person if required]

academiclibrariesnorth — 2026-06-25 14:55:36 UTC

Sub-question or email address here if required.

2026-07-02 09:07:35 UTC

Please can you share the Teams link?

Going through to Library search from Research Assistant

2026-07-02 09:15:48 UTC

Lee - Do Elsevier and JSTOR results appear if you go out of Research Assistant and go into Library Search? Or do they remain permanently excluded

Long boolean string

2026-07-02 09:16:17 UTC

Can the user get to see the long boolean query behind their prompt?

Do you notice that Research Assistant tends to link to open access sources and materials outside your collection rather than actually giving 5 quality sources? [Lee Blyth]

2026-07-02 09:19:40 UTC

We see that the quality of Research Assistant's searches is more about the amount and quality of metadata that the sources have rather than 'quality' as we understand it as academics / librarians. Have you been able to optimise that at all at Northumbria?

Develop bespoke AI library tool?

2026-07-02 09:21:22 UTC

How easy is it for a library to develop its own AI tool with MCP?

Talk 1 Q: agentic AI in discover

2026-07-02 09:22:42 UTC

How do you envisage agentic AI might affect/change search/discovery?

Rejection of AI by some younger people

2026-07-02 09:23:16 UTC

The "inevitablity" of AI seems to overlook that there are younger people - as well as others - rejecting AI and the consumer model of capitalism and are very suspicious of the tech bros who they don't want controlling their lives. How much are libraries facilitating the inevitability of AI by buying into all this and what are we going to do with students who don't want their lives run by AI?

Have Northumbria enabled the Research assistant yet or did you decide not to?

2026-07-02 09:24:15 UTC

Top ranking

2026-07-02 09:24:31 UTC

Interested to learn about the "top ranking" structure - thanks for explaining. Believe it's essential we push Ex Libris to further explain how they are "ranking" the abstracts - I'm assuming the "keyword" match is becoming increasingly important - which may result in Academic Research repeating "keywords".....to raise the papers ranking!

coding a prompt

2026-07-02 09:24:46 UTC

Do you have a prompt which will provide you with higher quality and more relevant results when doing such a search and can those prompts be coded into your content discovery system so that students don’t have to type the prompt every time a search is done?

PRA not being conversational

2026-07-02 09:26:43 UTC

PRA - Alongside the limitation in search scope to CDI records where there is an adequate abstract, not being conversational feels like a limitation especially when compared to other AI tools.

How to tell whether an AI tool adds submissions to training data? [Liesl]

2026-07-02 09:37:52 UTC

Do you have any 'quick tells' to help students spot what an AI tool will do with data you enter into it?

talk 2 question- copilot licenses

2026-07-02 09:40:12 UTC

At our institution we have been hesitant to bring the copilot license into our copyright advise for students because our students use their own devices- so it is hard (lack of advise from IT) to ensure they are using the school's copilot instead of what might be on their own devices. Also it has been raised to me that although internal copilot doesn't train on data you put in it does search out to the wider web so there's risk there- does anyone provide training in the library or advice materials about this or to navigate this?

Co-pilot at MCR

2026-07-02 09:43:23 UTC

Neil, you mentioned that Co-pilot was deemed a risk-free platform. Is that purely in terms of copyright compliance, or are you looking at other potential risks? (eg academic integrity, mental health, inclusion, sustainability and so on)

AI Copyright Code of Practice

2026-07-02 09:48:09 UTC

Where can I find out more about this please?

Agentic AI and Governance

2026-07-02 09:53:54 UTC

From what Clarivate have focused on recently then it feels like the AI agent/ agentic AI is going to develop rapidly in the next few years and agree with Lee about this connecting up existing services and applications through APIs and further spread of MPC which will change how our services are accessed. Still questions around oversight and governance in the area of agentic AI and that may result in retrospectively constructing a moral framework after the technology has been deployed and continuing to develop ahead of any governance.

Accessibility - Risk?

lee_blyth — 2026-07-02 09:54:02 UTC

Alice - What would be your thoughts around whether there is a high risk that universities don't really understand their accessibility support offer in enough detail, if the tools aren't fully understood?

Uni of manchester -how are students paid for?

2026-07-02 10:28:32 UTC

Not turning on Primo Research Assistant - Chloe

2026-07-02 10:48:03 UTC

What was the reasons of not turning on Primo Research Assistant?

For Sheffield Hallam colleagues

lee_blyth — 2026-07-02 10:50:15 UTC

Such a great amount of activity around AI - do you feel this has helped to really centre the library when it comes to AI at the university?