Topic: Generative AI
Upcoming Event
December 10, 2026
AI in Action: Staff Perspectives & Institutional Approaches to Implementing AI in Library Operations
In May 2026, Ithaka S+R launched the AI in Action cohort, bringing together twenty academic libraries to collaboratively explore, test, and assess how artificial intelligence (AI) might improve or streamline library operations. This project briefing will pair cross-institutional evidence with practical case studies to explore how libraries are navigating the opportunities and uncertainties associated with implementing AI in library operations. At this CNI Fall 2026 session, Ithaka S+R will first share findings from a survey of…
Past Event
November 5, 2026
The Researcher Has Left the Building
Bots, AI Crawlers, and the Research Journey Libraries Need to Understand
The academic research journey no longer begins at the library. Over the last decade, dramatic declines in library website traffic confirmed what many suspected: patrons moved to the open web, using search engines, publisher platforms, citation trails, preprint servers, and research networks while completely bypassing library discovery entirely. Most libraries have yet to reckon with what that shift means for how they serve researchers, design services, or measure success. And now the environment has shifted again. Beginning in late 2024,…
Upcoming Event
December 3, 2026
Academic Libraries Under Pressure
Values, Priorities, and the Future of Work
Academic libraries are navigating a period of rapid change as they balance financial pressures, evolving campus priorities, and the growing impact of generative AI. Ithaka S+R’s US Library Survey 2025: Under Pressure offers a timely look at how library deans and directors at four-year, not-for-profit higher education institutions across the US are responding to these challenges and preparing their organizations for the future. In this webinar, on December 3, 2026 at 2:00PM ET, we will share key findings from…
Past Event
October 29, 2026
HBCU Libraries, Artificial Intelligence, and the Digital Future
Mark McBride and Dylan Ruediger will participation in a panel discussion at the HBCU Library Alliance Annual Meeting in Nashville Tennessee, alongside Siobahn Day Grade, Douglas Fisher, and Del Hornbuckle. The conversation will address a range of questions related to the role of HBCU libraries in the age of AI. The meeting is scheduled to take place on October 27, 2026.
Blog Post
October 16, 2026
Supporting Researchers in a Time of Change
New Insights from a National Survey of Faculty
As 2027 approaches, senior leaders are facing another year of uncertainty across the research enterprise. Steep declines in applications and admissions of international graduate students portend both short- and long-term gaps in the talent pipeline. Ongoing volatility regarding the terms and conditions of federal grants create budgetary landmines, while concerns about research integrity and public confidence are sharpening the need to protect trust in scholarly work. At the same time, researchers are adopting AI across the research process faster than…
Blog Post
October 13, 2026
Exploring AI for Academic Library Operations
Early Lessons from 2026 and Announcing the 2027 Cohort
In May 2026, we launched the first AI in Action cohort, providing guided support and peer learning opportunities to 20 academic libraries as they explored how to implement AI tools into their library’s operations. Since then, the cohort has made considerable progress: we have examined the range of AI use cases in academic libraries, reviewed the ethical considerations surrounding their use, and surveyed library staff across participating institutions about their perceptions of and engagement with AI. Additionally, at individual…
Research Report
October 8, 2026
Buffeted by Change, Researchers Seek Continuity and Investment
Results from the Ithaka S+R US Researcher Survey
The research enterprise in the United States, established after the second world war, is experiencing massive disruption, and researchers at US higher education institutions are operating in an unstable environment. Against this backdrop, the findings from our survey of 4,003 researchers, fielded in late 2025, demonstrate that they remain committed to carrying out essential work and that they are doing so in innovative ways—through collaboration, the creation of valuable educational experiences, and pushing knowledge towards the next frontier.
Blog Post
October 7, 2026
The “Skill” of Not Using AI
In a recent national survey, we asked college instructors to share the AI-related skills they prioritize and teach in their classes and compared their responses to employers’, using an AI skills Framework originally developed by researchers at the multi-national human resources technology company HiBob. Asking instructors to prioritize AI-related skills within a specific framework inevitably begs the question of what other skills those instructors consider important. When offered the opportunity to suggest additional skills, many instructors noted how…
Blog Post
September 25, 2026
It’s Not Just About AI Skills
Much of the AI conversation in higher education focuses on the value of AI literacy and AI-related skills for students’ future prospects in the job market. Far less attention, however, has been paid to how students can communicate what they have learned with potential employers. As part of a recent national survey on the AI skills instructors prioritize and teach in their courses, we asked instructors: who is responsible for preparing students to present AI-related skills to potential…
Past Event
September 27, 2026
AI, the Humanities, and Teaching
At the Clemente Course in the Humanities Annual Retreat, Ithaka S+R’s Claire Baytas will share an overview of what we have been learning about generative AI, higher ed, and teaching and learning in the humanities. The session will include a short presentation followed by group discussion with faculty who teach humanities courses with Clemente Course. The session is scheduled to take place on September 27.
Past Event
November 5, 2026
When AI Answers Instead
Attribution, Access, and Usage in the Next Scholarly Record
Increasingly, scholarly research does not lead to an article or a journal issue. It leads to an answer. That shift creates a practical problem for libraries, publishers, researchers, and infrastructure providers. When an AI tool reads across the scholarly literature and produces a response, the original work may be hard to identify, authorized access may be hard to enforce, and usage may be hard to count. The issue is not whether AI belongs in scholarship, but whether AI-mediated…
Past Event
November 5, 2026
Are Libraries Leading the AI Conversation, or Just Cleaning Up After It?
Higher education keeps treating AI adoption like a complicated technical problem: pick the right tools, write the right policies, train the right people, declare readiness. This session argues it’s actually a complex organizational challenge, one whose effects on trust, role identity, expertise, authority, academic integrity, student agency, and institutional culture can’t be fully predicted in advance, no matter how good the policy. Academic libraries have a strong claim to leadership here. They’ve guided campuses through earlier upheavals, the…
Past Event
September 28, 2026
Incorporating Environmental Perspectives into AI Literacy
Join Ithaka S+R for a conversation about how higher education is thinking about AI’s environmental impacts. We will speak with four panelists—Beth Filar Williams (User Experience Research Librarian, Oregon State University Libraries), Chris Rabe (Program Lead, Universal Climate, MIT Open Learning, and Education Program Director, MIT Climate Project), Eira Tansey (founder and manager of Memory Rising), and Sarah Tribelhorn (Sciences and Sustainability Librarian, San Diego State University)—to explore how the environmental impacts of AI could feature within AI…
Blog Post
August 31, 2026
Ithaka S+R’s Environmental AI Literacy Framework
Inviting Feedback from the Public
As campuses introduce trainings and resources to promote AI literacy, how can they also ensure that students, faculty, and staff understand the environmental impacts of the technology? This question is at the core of the Incorporating Environmental Perspectives into AI Literacy project. Through it, we published a LibGuide which provides resources on the environmental footprint of AI and efforts to mitigate those impacts. To make the LibGuide actionable, we are now introducing the Environmental AI Literacy Framework.
Blog Post
August 26, 2026
Where Instructors Turn To Learn About AI
Acknowledging that some instructors reject AI outright and see no place for it in higher education, there are increasing numbers of faculty members seeking to better understand, utilize, and integrate AI into their own practice as teachers and researchers. While institutional centers for teaching and learning, libraries, and IT offices are all trying to help instructors adopt or adapt to AI, the broad impact of these efforts remains unknown.
Blog Post
August 18, 2026
AI Skills for the Workforce
Where Employers and Instructors Differ
As generative AI becomes ever more pervasive in society, business, and in higher education, there are increasing calls for colleges and universities to ensure that students are AI-ready when they enter the workforce. But organizations have different visions of what AI readiness actually entails. These frameworks include, to some degree, a set of AI-related skills that students need to more successfully enter the world of AI-inflected work. Ambiguity remains, however, around what skills…
Research Report
August 18, 2026
AI Skills for College Graduates
Exploring How Instructors and Employers Prioritize AI Skills Differently
Since the public release of ChatGPT in 2022, both higher education institutions and employers have been keenly focused on how to prepare college students, and ultimately graduates, for the new world of AI-inflected work. But what does it mean to be ready for the AI workplace? We embarked on one of the first major efforts to vet a comprehensive framework of what constitutes AI skills with college and university instructors as well as to understand how instructors prioritize these skills.
Past Event
August 27, 2026
What Can You Expect To Get From Licensing To AI Systems?
In this CHORUS Forum event, on August 27 at 11:00am ET, Todd Toler will join a panel including Todd Ware, Emilie Delquie, and moderator Paul Sanders, for a discussion on licensing to LLMs. The conversation will include what organizations can expect, what liabilities organizations should be aware of, and how responsible use is defined.
Blog Post
July 22, 2026
How AI Is Reshaping the Value of Higher Education
A New Issue Brief
AI touches all of the basic assumptions that underlie how we think about the value of postsecondary education and academic research: what students need to learn, how they learn, how institutions operate, and how universities contribute to the production and dissemination of knowledge. The immediate questions it raises are urgent and real. Students need AI literacy and training on work-relevant AI tools. Faculty need to rethink assignments and assessment. Institutions are trying to understand how AI…
Issue Brief
July 16, 2026
Postsecondary Value in the Age of AI
AI is rapidly changing the conversation about postsecondary value because it changes the production function of postsecondary education and academic research. By “value,” I mean more than the individual return on investment to students, though that matters enormously. Postsecondary value also includes the costs and benefits for institutions, communities and states, the research enterprise, and society more broadly. It includes whether students gain the education and credentials they need to build meaningful lives and careers; whether institutions can deliver that…