Noelle E. C. Evans, WXXI; University of Rochester's incoming head librarian looks to adapt to AI
"A new head librarian at the University of Rochester is preparing to take on a growing challenge — adapting to generative artificial intelligence.
Tim McGeary takes on the position of university librarian and dean of libraries on March 1. He is currently associate librarian for digital strategies and technology at Duke University, where he’s witnessed AI challenges firsthand...
“(The university’s digital repository) was dealing with an unforeseen consequence of its own success: By making (university) research freely available to anyone, it had actually made it less accessible to everyone,” Jamie Washington wrote for the campus online news source, UDaily.
That balance between open access and protecting students, researchers and publishers from potential harms from AI is a space of major disruption, McGeary said.
"If they're doing this to us, we have open systems, what are they possibly doing to those partners we have in the publishing space?" McGeary asked. "We've already seen some of the larger AI companies have to be in court because they have acquired content in ways that are not legal.”
In the past 25 years, he said he’s seen how university libraries have evolved with changing technology; they've had to reinvent how they serve research and scholarship. So in a way, this is another iteration of those challenges, he said."
