This paper is a comparative review of four seminal works on communities of practice. It is argued that the ambiguities of the terms community and practice are a source of the concept's reusability allowing it to be reappropriated for different purposes, academic and practical. However, it is potentially confusing that the works differ so markedly in their conceptualizations of community, learning, power and change, diversity and informality. The three earlier works are underpinned by a common epistemological view, but Lave and Wenger's 1991 short monograph is often read as primarily about the socialization of newcomers into knowledge by a form of apprenticeship, while the focus in Brown and Duguid's article of the same year is, in contrast, on improvising new knowledge in an interstitial group that forms in resistance to management. Wenger's 1998 book treats communities of practice as the informal relations and understandings that develop in mutual engagement on an appropriated joint enterprise, but his focus is the impact on individual identity. The applicability of the concept to the heavily individualized and tightly managed work of the twenty-first century is questionable. The most recent work by Wenger – this time with McDermott and Snyder as coauthors – marks a distinct shift towards a managerialist stance. The proposition that managers should foster informal horizontal groups across organizational boundaries is in fact a fundamental redefinition of the concept. However it does identify a plausible, if limited, knowledge management (KM) tool. This paper discusses different interpretations of the idea of 'co-ordinating' communities of practice as a management ideology of empowerment.

Purpose: The last few years have seen a surge of interest in artificial intelligence (AI). The purpose of this paper is to capture a snapshot of perceptions of the potential impact of AI on academic libraries and to reflect on its implications for library work. Design/methodology/approach: The data for the study were interviews with 33 library directors, library commentators and experts in education and publishing. Findings: Interviewees identified impacts of AI on search and resource discovery, on scholarly publishing and on learning. Challenges included libraries being left outside the focus of development, ethical concerns, intelligibility of decisions and data quality. Some threat to jobs was perceived. A number of potential roles for academic libraries were identified such as data acquisition and curation, AI tool acquisition and infrastructure building, aiding user navigation and data literacy. Originality/value: This is one of the first papers to examine current expectations around the impact of AI on academic libraries. The authors propose the paradigm of the intelligent library to capture the potential impact of AI for libraries.

The probable impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on work, including professional work, is contested, but it is unlikely to leave them untouched. The purpose of this conceptual paper is to consider the likelihood of the adoption of different approaches to AI in academic libraries. As theoretical lenses to guide the analysis the paper draws on both the library and information science (LIS) literature on librarians' competencies and the notions of jurisdiction and hybrid logics drawn from the sociological theory of the professions. The paper starts by outlining these theories and then reviews the nature of AI and the range of its potential uses in academic libraries. The main focus of the paper is on the application of AI to knowledge discovery. Eleven different potential approaches libraries might adopt to such AI applications are analyzed and their likelihood evaluated. Then it is considered how a range of internal and external factors might influence the adoption of AI. In addition to reflecting on the possible impact of AI on librarianship the paper contributes to understanding how to synthesize the competencies literature with the theory of the profession and presents a new understanding of librarians as hybrid.

This paper reports research carried out at the end of 2012 to survey UK universities to understand in detail the ways in which libraries are currently involved in research data management and the extent to which the development of research data management services is a strategic priority for them. The research shows that libraries were offering limited research data management services, with highest levels of activity in large research-intensive institutions. There were major challenges associated with skills gaps, resourcing and cultural change. However, libraries are currently involved in developing new institutional research data management policies and services, and see this as an important part of their future role. Priorities such as provision of research data management advisory and training services are emerging. A systematic comparison between these results and other recent studies is made in order to create a full picture of activities and trends. An innovation hype-cycle framework is deployed to understand possible futures and Abbott’s theory of professions is used to gain an insight into how libraries are competing to extend their jurisdiction whilst at the same time working collaboratively with other stakeholders.

This article reports an international study of research data management (RDM) activities, services, and capabilities in higher education libraries. It presents the results of a survey covering higher education libraries in Australia, Canada, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and the UK. The results indicate that libraries have provided leadership in RDM, particularly in advocacy and policy development. Service development is still limited, focused especially on advisory and consultancy services (such as data management planning support and data‐related training), rather than technical services (such as provision of a data catalog, and curation of active data). Data curation skills development is underway in libraries, but skills and capabilities are not consistently in place and remain a concern. Other major challenges include resourcing, working with other support services, and achieving “buy in” from researchers and senior managers. Results are compared with previous studies in order to assess trends and relative maturity levels. The range of RDM activities explored in this study are positioned on a “landscape maturity model,” which reflects current and planned research data services and practice in academic libraries, representing a “snapshot” of current developments and a baseline for future research.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robotics are likely to have a significant long-term impact on higher education (HE). The scope of this impact is hard to grasp partly because the literature is siloed, as well as the changing meaning of the concepts themselves. But developments are surrounded by controversies in terms of what is technically possible, what is practical to implement and what is desirable, pedagogically or for the good of society. Design fictions that vividly imagine future scenarios of AI or robotics in use offer a means both to explain and query the technological possibilities. The paper describes the use of a wide-ranging narrative literature review to develop eight such design fictions that capture the range of potential use of AI and robots in learning, administration and research. They prompt wider discussion by instantiating such issues as how they might enable teaching of high order skills or change staff roles, as well as exploring the impact on human agency and the nature of datafication.