Category: Publication

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Information shock: how AI demands an evolution of information science

Lankes, R. David (2026). Information shock: How AI demands an evolution of information science. Journal of Documentation 1-12 https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-07-2026-0407

Purpose

This paper argues that AI authoring is prompting an Information Shock and a new information science. The shock is not a matter of increased volume and variable quality of AI-produced information. It comes as generative AI creates a new kind of author that dissolves the document, the field’s organizing unit. This forces a reconstitution of tools, literacies and identity.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper applies a conceptual framework drawn from the history of Information Shocks, tracing how disruptions from cuneiform to post-World War II research data forced the field to rebuild around new objects and practices. AI is analyzed against that pattern.

Findings

AI produces two modes of authorship: document-like objects that enter existing infrastructures, and transactional, co-authored exchanges with no stable unit to catalog, retrieve, cite or verify. The second mode renders AI literacy inadequate, even in its current forms, because they presuppose an identifiable object and human interlocutors. Anticipated changes reach professional identity, tools, intellectual property and education.

Research limitations/implications

The argument is theoretical and prospective, and some anticipated changes remain speculative. The Information Shock outlined is anticipated to have major impacts for librarians and information professionals moving forward.

Originality/value

The paper offers a historically grounded distinction between document-producing and transactional AI authorship, arguing that AI is pushing the exchange to take the mediating position that the field has long held.

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Librarianship, After the Information Shock

Lankes, R. D. (2026). Librarianship, After the Information Shock. Journal of New Librarianship, 11(2), 140–143. https://doi.org/10.33011/newlibs/21/10

Abstract: In 2019 I wrote of the need for a new librarianship centered on knowledge, and the learning conversation. While that argument holds seven years later, I did not anticipate that those conversations could be held with a non-human conversant. This is causing an Information Shock whose impact goes far beyond the synthetic documents AI can produce, only an extension of the last shock. The deeper disruption is that AI can now instill beliefs, true and false, without accountability. This goes well beyond current efforts in AI literacy. It calls for a full embrace of the new librarianship and a new role for librarians as the accountable conversant in these AI-Human exchanges, standing on the side of the person to ground understanding in evidence and culture. We must claim that role now, because whether this shock unfolds through opaque commercial systems or something for the public good remains a choice.

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The Lankes Corollaries Redux

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Last year I published “The Lankes Corollaries” in the Access: An International Journal of Nepal Library Association. I have recreated it here…and enhanced it a bit (it was published with a creative commons license). To cite it, please support my colleagues in Nepal:

Lankes, R. D. (2023). The Lankes Corollaries . Access: An International Journal of Nepal Library Association, 2(01), 200–208. https://doi.org/10.3126/access.v2i01.58999 

Abstract: This piece explores a series of corollaries to Ranganathan’s five laws of librarianship. These corollaries talk about how librarians work with communities to ensure that service is shaped throughout the community. Such shaping moves libraries away from some pre-determined standard model, and into hyperlocal organizations ultimately facilitating knowledge creation.

Introduction: In 1931 S. R. Ranganathan proposed 5 laws of librarianship (Ranganathan, 1931)

  1. Books are for use
  2. Every person his or her book
  3. Every book its reader
  4. Save the time of the reader
  5. A library is a growing organism

While others have tried to expand/revise/or update them (Gorman, 1998, Simpson 2008), the originals stand up. Clearly today we would expand books to resources and even services (e.g., services are for use) and readers have become members or just “people” – as we see that the library is a part of a person’s life – hopefully a significant part.

 

However, Ranganathan was clearly being aspirational: what we want to be, not so much how we get there. What I propose are 5 corollaries to the laws–guide post for library workers and organizations to achieve these lofty goals:

  1. The mission of librarians is to improve society through facilitating knowledge creation in their communities
  2. To be a librarian is to be a radical positive change agent with your community
  3. A room full of books is a closet, but an empty room with a librarian serving their community is a library
  4. Bad libraries build collections, good libraries build services, great libraries build communities
  5. A library should be a safe space to explore dangerous ideas.
Read the Full Piece

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The Lankes Corollaries

Lankes, R. David (2023). The Lankes Corollaries. Access: An International Journal of Nepal Library Association. 2(1). Available: https://doi.org/10.3126/access.v2i01.58999

ABSTRACT: This piece explores a series of corollaries to Ranganathan’s five laws of librarianship. These corollaries talk about how librarians work with community’s to ensure that service is shaped throughout the community. Such shaping moves libraries away from some pre-determined standard model, and into hyper local organizations ultimately facilitating knowledge creation.

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The Vital Role of Libraries and Democracy Needs Protection

Lankes, R. David (2023). The Vital Role of Libraries and Democracy Needs Protection. Clip de SEDIC, Revista de la Sociedad Española de Documentación e Información Científica. Available: https://doi.org/10.47251/clip.n87.112

ABSTRACT: The current spate of materials challenges in libraries globally calls out for new defenses.Concepts of library neutrality and librarian objectivity fall flat in light of current developments, and against organized challengers not interested in objectivity. New defenses of library services must be based on librarian expertise and activated network of diverse community members. The field needs to strengthen societal protections for librarians in the conduct of their work.