GenAI in Academic Libraries: Exploring AI-Driven Scholarship and Clarivate’s Web of Science Research Assistant

The Authority File

In this episode, Francesca Buckland, Vice President of Product Management for the Web of Science at Clarivate, joins The Authority File to discuss artificial intelligence applications in academic libraries. To start, Fran details Clarivate’s history with developing AI products, including seeking guidance from the library community. Further, she chats about generative AI enhancing research efficiencies and underpinning critical thinking, particularly through Clarivate’s recently launched Web of Science Research Assistant. As Fran explains, the tool offers scholarly overviews, visualizations, and guided research workflows, all based in the Web of Science Core Collection. Digging into the needed balance between automation and human oversight, our guest also covers key topics like AI transparency, ethical design, and data security.

Next, Fran highlights Clarivate’s recent Pulse of the Library report. Revealing librarians’ progress toward establishing institutional AI plans, the report dovetails with Clarivate’s interest in utilizing AI for core librarian tasks and to support the library mission. Finally, as industry standards and guidelines on AI continue to enter the scholarly landscape, Fran anticipates better guardrails around ethical AI use and transparency, in addition to more advanced AI analytics tools to assess large data sets.

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