The CNI Interviews Podcast

This episode explores an effort to create a public-interest corpus for AI training using digitized materials from research libraries, archives, and special collections. Dan Cohen, dean of the Libraries at Northeastern University, and Thomas Padilla, public interest artificial intelligence strategist for Authors Alliance, outline their goal to expand AI’s access to high-value, long-form academic content, typically absent from commercial models.

Audiovisual medium is only about one hundred and thirty years old, yet it has become the mainstay of our interaction with content today. How do academic libraries and higher education institutions become effective stewards for a medium prone to erosion, playback obsolescence, and manipulation?

Washington University launched the Digital Intelligence and Innovation Accelerator to drive digital transformation and support researchers. The university libraries have played a central role in connecting people and projects—including building a research chatbot, expanding access to open educational resources, and developing a campus-wide research profile system.

Can libraries lead the way in advancing AI literacy in a rapidly evolving landscape? Leo Lo, dean and professor for the College of University Libraries and Learning Sciences at the University of New Mexico, discusses his own approach, which is grounded in interdisciplinary collaboration, pedagogy, and ethics.

Alison Hitchens, associate university librarian, collections, technology, scholarly communication for the University of Waterloo, helped organize a gathering of researchers, librarians, and IT professionals to discuss research data management strategies. In this interview, she talks about bringing various departments together to talk across disciplines and the benefits these conversations deliver.

Judith Conklin, CIO of the Library of Congress, discusses embedding digital strategies into the Library's new strategic plan to increase accessibility and innovation. She highlights efforts to digitize the Library's collections, explore the use of artificial intelligence, and maintain strong cybersecurity.You can also watch the episode on YouTube.