Theme: “Mind the Gap: The Role of Librarians in Supporting Responsible News Media Research Behaviors in the Age of AI“
Introduction
The IFLA News Media Section, Artificial Intelligence Special Interest Group and Digital Humanities Digital Scholarship Special Interest Group is seeking proposals for papers to be presented at a session to be held at the IFLA World Library and Information Congress in Busan, South Korea, 10-13 August 2026.
As news content becomes increasingly available to everyone online – from extensive digitized historical newspapers to born digital news media – a paradox emerges: despite the apparent ease of direct online access to sources, librarian expertise remains indispensable. Especially now, as AI-driven research practices are increasingly shaping research and concerns about misinformation and fake news grow, the role of librarians in supporting responsible research practices and ethical media sharing by researchers is not just relevant – it is fundamental.
The session invites proposals to reflect on how libraries can continue to support, inform, and critically frame research and research best practices for an audience who increasingly depend on AI models? This session aims to explore the following questions: are librarians currently, or can they in the future, ensure that digitised and born-digital news collections remain not only accessible but also trustworthy and meaningfully interpretable in a rapidly changing technological landscape? What steps should librarians and IT specialists take to build a relationship based on trust and expertise with researchers, and more generally with our library users, to support them in becoming responsible research citizens?
In other words:
- How can librarians ensure trustworthiness and interpretability of news collections?
- What new competencies are required in an AI-mediated research environment?
- How can libraries build trust relationships with researchers using AI tools?
Papers should also reflect the conference theme, “Libraries Powering Transformation”.
Concerning the format we propose Ignite/lightning talk where speakers will have only 7 minutes to captivate the audience on their topic of choice. Time for the OS is limited to 60 min, so we will be able to accept up to 5 speakers.
Timeline:
All proposals must be submitted by 26 April 2026.
Proposals will be evaluated by the Open Session Programme Committee and authors will be informed by 11 May 2026.
Suggested topics
- Librarians as stewards of digitization
Librarians play an essential role in news media curation, encompassing selecting, preserving, and digitizing collections, ensuring high-quality metadata, and maintaining the integrity and provenance of sources. Their decisions shape the very datasets that researchers rely on—yet these processes often remain invisible to end users. Digitisation processes are themselves increasingly reliant on AI.
- Navigating heterogeneity in digitized and born-digital corpora
Digital news collections are rarely uniform: they may be crawled from the Web or digitized using different technologies, at different times, and according to evolving standards. OCR quality, image resolution, metadata practices, and file formats vary widely. AI tools are increasingly being offered as part of digital news services so that people can quickly gain summaries. Librarians act as guides into their collections by helping researchers understand the inconsistencies and their implications for computational analysis.
- Adapting in an AI shaped world
AI is now embedded in many news related practices: in the production of news by journalists, in the presentation of news to readers, and in library digitisation. Where are the critical points where trust in authoritative sources needs to be protected? How far do AI uses reinforce existing biases? One of the side effects of the emergence of conversational agents, such as ChatGPT and Gemini, in our lives is the growing phenomenon of fake bibliographic data.
Increasing numbers of librarians are expressing their frustration as researchers and readers ask them for recommendations based on artificial intelligence (AI) … which do not exist, as these chatbots have invented them from scratch. How can you prove that a document whose references were generated by AI does not exist? At the same time, how far should AI created content or content partly produced by AI be preserved?
- Other possible topics: AI literacy programs for researchers, detection of AI-generated citations, role of libraries in fact-checking ecosystems, policy frameworks for AI use in research
Submission guidelines
Proposals should include:
- Title of proposed presentation
- Abstract of proposed paper (no more than 300 words)
- Name of presenter plus position and/or title
- Employer / affiliated institution
- Contact information including email address, telephone number
- Short biographical statement of presenter
Send proposals via email to: Karolina Holub kholub@nsk.hr and Alexia Bauville alexia.bauville@bnf.fr
Use subject line: WLIC2026Open Session Proposal_Title_Name Surname
Important dates & deadlines:
- 26/04/2026: Deadline for submission of proposals/abstracts
- 11/05/2026: Notification to authors about the status of a submission
- 01/07/2026: Submission of the full text of the paper
- 03/08/2026: Submission of accompanying PowerPoint slides for presentation
Please note:
- At least one of the paper’s authors must be present to summarize the paper during the program in Busan. Abstracts are to be submitted only with the understanding that the expenses of attending the conference will be the responsibility of the author(s)/presenter(s) of accepted papers.
- All papers must use the WLIC Paper template, which will be provided when your paper is accepted
- The language of the session is expected to be
- All papers presented at the WLIC 2026 will be available online under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.
- All papers must be unpublished and not previously
- Authors must disclose whether they submit this proposal to another WLIC 2026
- Authors of accepted papers must complete the IFLA Authors’ Permission
- Authors and presenters must adhere to the Presenter guidelines, provided when your paper is accepted
- All expenses, including registration for the conference, travel, accommodations, , are the responsibility of the authors/presenters. IFLA does not provide any financial support.
Congress Participation Grants
A list of opportunities for support is available on the Grants and Awards page of the WLIC website.
WLIC 2026 Open Session Programme Committee:
- Alexia Bauville, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, IFLA News Media Section
- Ana Krahmer, The University of North Texas Libraries, IFLA News Media Section
- Andrew Cox, University of Sheffield – Information School, Artificial Intelligence Special Interest Group
- Debal Kar, Galgotias University, Digital Humanities – Digital Scholarship Special Interest Group
- Jari Heikkinen, National Library of Finland, IFLA News Media Section
- Kopana Terry, University of Kentucky Libraries, IFLA News Media Section
- Melissa Jerome, University of Florida, IFLA News Media Section
- Nina Servizzi, New York University Libraries, IFLA News Media Section
- Marjan Marinkovic, Belgrade City Library, IFLA News Media Section
- Viktor Mutev, St. Petersburg State University of Culture, IFLA News Media Section
- Karolina Holub, National and University Library in Zagreb, IFLA News Media Section