Technological trends for academic libraries - don't believe the hype (cycle)

Academic librarianship has been transformed by digital developments throughout the 21st century and these developments continue to accelerate and impact on academic libraries. Consequently, academic libraries often have to manage competing digital and technological priorities and recently the emergence of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) in an education and research context has resulted in academic libraries needing to react to this particular trend. This paper considers the recent ‘hype’ around GenAI and academic libraries and reports on a light touch investigation into the current digital priorities for academic libraries. A selection of academic library directors were consulted with regard to their individual and sectoral digital priorities and what they saw as the current digital trends affecting academic libraries. The main findings are that digital collection development and library staff training and development around digital skills and competencies remain high priorities for academic libraries, but also academic libraries have quickly become key partners in training and instruction around GenAI use in teaching learning and research. The paper also concludes that rapid development in AI and GenAI is likely to have increased significant impact on the delivery of academic library services.