Redesigning Discovery for AI-First Users
Rosalyn Metz
Chief Technology Officer, Libraries and Museum
Emory University
Miri Botzer
Vice President, Product Innovation, Academic & Government
Clarivate
Allen Jones
Senior Director of Digital Libraries & Technical Services
The New School
As students and researchers begin more of their academic work inside artificial intelligence (AI) systems rather than library portals, traditional models of discovery face a profound challenge. For libraries, this shift poses both a risk and an opportunity: discovery must evolve to meet users where they are. This session will explore how discovery can be reimagined for an AI-first environment. It will examine how emerging standards, such as the Model Context Protocol (MCP), can be used to embed library services directly into user workflows and consider possibilities like Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), which may influence how scholarly content becomes visible in AI-driven responses. At the heart of this shift is the library’s core role as the safeguard of scholarly sources, entitlements, and context, ensuring that even as technologies evolve, trust and integrity remain central.
https://rosalynmetz.substack.com/p/bots-barriers-and-the-future-of-the
Improving Learning and Research by Connecting Collections and LLMs Through Model Context Protocol
Dan Cohen
Dean of the Library, Professor of History
Northeastern University
Evan Simpson
Associate Dean for Experiential Learning and Academic Engagement
Northeastern University
This year, the Northeastern University Library (NUL) developed and launched an MCP (Model Context Protocol) server and associated plugin for the AI chatbot Claude. For academic requests, NUL’s enhancement of Claude makes extensive use of library resources, such as peer-reviewed articles, rather than the web resources normally consulted by LLMs through retrieval-augmented generation (RAG). Early testing of this combination has seen not only an improved experience for students and faculty seeking relevant library materials, but has sparked some new ideas for supporting teaching and assisting in the genesis and lifecycle of research.
https://newsletter.dancohen.org/archive/the-librarys-new-entryway/
