Recasting the Mould – Librarianship of the Future: leveraging Automation, APIs, and AI

With leaps in artificial intelligence made in recent years redefining the information landscape and introducing new means of information production, librarianship also must evolve to include new literacies. One way librarians can equip and empower ourselves is by understanding the building blocks of how machines and automation work. Perhaps more important than learning specific programming languages, learning computational thinking provides us with more ways to spot and evaluate problems and devise solutions without extensive coding knowledge. My presentation will take the improvement of membership processing as an example using Power Automate, a low-code Microsoft tool mimicking block programming. The tool allows me to explore Alma APIs without learning to code, instead focusing more on exploration and creative problem solving. I will illustrate how we can use computational thinking to reduce staff workload, enhance user experience, and uncover the untapped potential of Alma APIs.