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The UOC Library presents its AI strategy at the BOBCATSSS 2025 conference

Multidisciplinary
People at a conference taking notes in a notebook
Author: The Climate Reality Project - Unsplash.com
06/02/25

The UOC Library team shared their experience using artificial intelligence (AI) at the BOBCATSSS 2025 conference, a leading international event in the world of libraries and information science, which took place in Istanbul, Turkey, from 21 to 23 January.

Natàlia Castellana, from the Library and Learning Resources department, presented the poster How can AI improve UOC library services. This set out the strategy and tests that have been carried out over the last year to explore whether AI can improve the Library's services and the production of learning resources.

Click on the image to open the infographic.

How can AI improve UOC library services

Responsible innovation

The poster presented at BOBCATSSS 2025 emphasized the working process, with a thoughtful approach to striking a balance between technological innovation and ethical responsibility. The team at the Library has launched a number of initiatives to achieve this aim:

  • Setting up an in-house multidisciplinary group: with monthly meetings to share documentation on AI literacy, news and trends, and experiences using tools for daily work.
  • Cooperation with other institutions: the UOC Library is part of the Spanish University Libraries Network (REBIUN) Artificial Intelligence Observatory, which works to identify trends and good practices in AI and foster collaboration with other sectors.
  • Pilots and tests: experimentation with AI tools to critically analyse and assess their potential for improving the efficiency, accessibility and user experience for the university community, both in the Library's services and in learning resources for courses.
Natàlia Castellana at the BOBCATSSS congress

Tests with AI and initial results

One of the projects featured in the poster is the pilot test of an AI search assistant. This tool allows the user to ask natural language questions, in any language, and provides answers based on academic sources. The UOC was the first institution in Spain to participate in closed beta testing run by Clarivate, with 16 other institutions from around the world. The test has been open to the entire university community since last September, and the results are being evaluated for its final integration into the Library's search engine.

Other AI applications have also been studied over the last year, including a chatbot to answer frequently asked questions from the UOC community about the Library, and the use of AI tools in the development of learning resources, such as video transcriptions, animations and the didactic labelling of texts. The poster shared the strengths and weaknesses of the experiments.

The poster also highlighted the challenges that must be faced, including data privacy, linguistic diversity and the need for technological adaptation.

AI projects at other libraries

BOBCATSSS 2025 was a forum for learning about AI initiatives in libraries all over the world. Some of the most noteworthy examples included:

The Open Research Knowledge Graph (ORKG) link opens in a new window

This platform organizes research articles on a structured basis, and instead of only presenting them as long texts, it extracts and displays key information in a more accessible and interconnected format to enable consultation and management by research staff and librarians.

Transkribus link opens in a new window

This AI-based platform recognizes digitized text from historical manuscripts, and users can edit it to make it more accessible and preserve it. It aims to facilitate the preservation of documentary heritage and improve accessibility to historical resources.

AI4Libraries link opens in a new window

This initiative seeks to integrate AI into libraries. It organizes a free online annual conference, and maintains an active community that works on practical cases and the development of AI-related workflows for libraries.

BOBCATSSS is an event where professionals and academics from all over the world share experiences and trends in the sector. It offers the chance to learn about innovative experiences in the continuous improvement of library services.

Experts