Erik Boekesteijn, Senior Advisor National Library of the Netherlands, is a self-described Global Library motivator and Library Pirate. In this bonus episode, Dave and Erik talk about story telling and future thinking.

Recorded at the AI in Cultural Heritage Institutions September 9, 2025 Meeting.

Today, we’re diving into a topic that’s near and dear to us: the pathways into librarianship and the broader information professions—the credentials, the professional development, and, honestly, the things we didn’t learn in library school.

Right now, higher education is being squeezed from every direction. Financial pressures are mounting with cuts to research and development funding, and uncertainty around international student enrollment is making things even more complicated. This has ripple effects for library and information science degree programs, continuing education, and the critical training we need for support staff who are the backbone of library and information services.

We all bring perspectives from both sides of the desk. We’ve been librarians, taught in highly ranked LIS programs, and worked directly with librarians, library staff, and information workers on the ground every day.

In this episode, we explore what’s happening on campuses and in libraries, how professional pathways are shifting, and where the future of librarianship and the information field might be headed. Stick around as we unpack the challenges, opportunities, and maybe a few surprises about what it really takes to build and sustain a career in the library and information world.

This semester (Autumn 2025), Dave is teaching a course off AI in Cultural Heritage Institutions. For that he is talking with global experts in libraries and museums about AI and its impact.

We offer some of these conversations as bonus episodes, and here’s the first:

Aaron Chaote is Director of Research & Strategy at the University of Texas Libraries. He focuses, “on research and innovation in libraries, archives, and museums - working with and studying the impact technology innovations have on systems and services and the people that rely on them.”

Aaron and Dave talk about creating AI catalog records with “confidence scores.” The result is (perhaps) better access, but without human validation or sign off. Hmmm...we wonder, will libraries and librarians now have to to accept more randomness and less authority in our work.