This event, for the first time in hybrid format, comprising two half-days in the middle of a hot Berlin summer, proved remarkably feisty, which is perhaps not surprising considering the issues being discussed, notably changing government attitudes to scientific research (one panel was accurately entitled “Libraries under fire: Defending scholarship in a time of political pressure”).
Holden Thorp, editor-in-chief of Science, set the tone with a keynote that tossed out several contentious statements, but which included some key distinctions, notably that politics is about anecdotes and storytelling, while science is about data. Scientists acknowledge one retracted paper from thousands, but politicians use that one paper to create a storm. Given Holden Thorp ‘s wide experience as a research chemist and university chancellor, his words had an authority when he talked about the “extraordinary defensiveness” among some authors and institutions when it comes to retractions. His conclusion, “It is possible to support science and hold it accountable at the same time”, was sensible. Some of his other statements seemed remarkably upbeat in the current climate, for example “even with the new budget, the US will remain the largest scientific funder in the world”, although he subsequently added “In my view, the US will recoil from this and make a correction, but a lot may be lost in the meantime”. His other comments on the scientific landscape included how science is currently perceived: “We have this narrative of success that alienates people”, which may be one factor, however unjustified, behind the current US government’s actions.
The following session, Libraries under Fire, raised fewer eyebrows, perhaps because all four panellists were in agreement about the extent of the problem. When a government bans terms such as “trans”, pointed out former chemist Suze Kundu, then you lose one of the fundamental ways in which chemicals are identified, something the authorities didn’t think about when creating their lists. Deciding how to respond, however, is more of a challenge. As Kathleen McEvoy pointed out, being pro-vaccine is not a story; is the anti-vaxxers who stand out.
The second panel session, which seemed to propose a calmer discussion (“Bridging the Gap: Honest Conversations Between Libraries and Publishers”) turned out to be very stormy. Chair Leah Hinds revealed the initial title for this panel had been “You need to calm down”, and there were moments when that title was appropriate . The panellists were a mixture of librarians and publishers, and much of what was said was expected: Demmy Verbeke, librarian at KU Leuven, stated “Librarians know better than publishers what academic researchers need”, followed by Melanie Lehnert-Bechle trying to calm the waters by stating both publishers and librarians have an understanding of what researchers need. Lou Peck, of The International Bunch, topped them both by suggesting that actually, the researchers themselves knew better about what researchers need.
There was a similar round of disagreement about for-profit and not-for-profit organisations, with some memorable statements, such as one NFP staffer stating “Returning value to shareholders is a fundamental different aim to ours”, to which one publisher replied “When I get up in the morning, I don’t think about shareholders”.
The final session was on “AI Realities for Academic Libraries” with again a panel of publishers and libraries. The most interesting presentation, however, was by the very articulate Lukas Pollmann of Google, who talked about “the need to make people [AI] literate”, and gave a shocking example of students asking genAI to improve their code without providing any of the code for genAI to assess: clearly, many students believe AI is magic. Laurie Bridges of Oregon State University described the fascinating courses she has initiated in the new AI Literacy Center, which is, perhaps appropriately, a virtual center with no physical office.
Sven Fund aptly summarized the day as “somewhere between soul-searching and group therapy”, and emphasized the need “to create visibility beyond science and research alone and beyond the US”. That’s a good conclusion, but exactly how it can be achieved is, perhaps, for another conference.
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