CNI Fall 2026 Membership Meeting
December 10–11, 2026
Grand Hyatt Washington, Washington, DC
CNI is offering two optional workshops on Thursday, December 10, 8:00–11:00 a.m. ET. Both are free and only open to those from a CNI member organization. Members can register thorugh the meeting registration form sent via email in September. Places are limited and confirmed on a first-come basis.
AI, Archives, and Access
Paul Ford (Aboard) and Josh Hadro (Library of Congress)
Two experienced archive builders—Josh Hadro of the Library of Congress and Paul Ford, co-founder of Aboard.com and New York Times columnist—will discuss the opportunities for access, accessibility, discoverability, and metadata extraction made possible by modern LLMs. They’ll share projects and approaches, with as much focus on what works as what doesn’t, but more importantly share real, hard-won knowledge about how, when, and why to introduce LLMs to hesitant organizations, and how to handle and discuss the extremely real risks of this technology, whether “hallucinations,” runaway access costs, environmental and social costs, or provenance and copyright concerns. For library and information systems, LLM-assisted coding can accelerate roadmaps, pay down technical debt, and improve access to corpora and research systems—but those results require craft, discipline, and attention. Josh and Paul will share how they’re building culture and craft around AI usage, and how that craft can be taught to your staff and patrons.
After the talk and Q&A (80 minutes + a short break), Josh and Paul will offer 90 minutes of “office hours” for people who want to share projects, ask for specific guidance, or discuss plans, concerns, and risk management.
Beyond Open or Closed: Making Informed Decisions About AI Access to Collections
Katherine Klosek (Association of Research Libraries) and Amy Deschenes (Harvard University)
This workshop is designed to help libraries navigate the complexities inherent in decisions about whether and how to make their content available to commercial AI providers, beyond the false binary choice between the extremes of openness and restriction.
Building on recent discussions at ARL and Harvard, participants will work through real library scenarios related to AI tensions, surface the questions libraries need to ask, and apply existing resources such as emerging model terms, ARL’s model deed of gift and digitization principles, and lessons learned from Google Books, to the AI era.
The workshop’s outputs will directly inform the development of practical tools including question sets, templates, and decision-making frameworks that will support library decisions around issues like balancing representation while protecting against bias; preserving provenance and attribution when chatbots become the primary interface between users and library collections; and terms and conditions under which to license library content. Suggested pre-read: Stewarding Open Content in the AI Age: A Facilitation Guide from ARL and Harvard Library
Further Information
If you have any questions, please contact [email protected].
Code of Conduct
CNI is committed to maintaining a welcoming and inclusive environment for inquiry, constructive disagreement, and intellectual freedom and honesty. We do not tolerate personal attacks, harassment of any kind, violence, or disruptive behavior. Please be respectful of our community’s diversity and generous of others’ views. If you have concerns, please contact CNI staff.
