Dávid Baranko is a librarian, project manager, and coordinator of the Libraries for Slovakia consortium at the Slovak Centre of Scientific and Technical Information. He is responsible for the SmartLab initiative – a nationwide network of 50 creative-educational spaces in libraries across Slovakia, bridging the gap between technology, education, and community engagement. He also leads the Smart Education in Libraries project, offering innovative training opportunities for librarians through international cooperation.

Presentation: Smart Laboratories and Smart Education in Slovak Libraries – Innovation for the Future
This presentation explores the SmartLab initiative – a nationwide network of creative-educational spaces in Slovak libraries that integrates STEAM education, digital literacy, and practical innovation. It also introduces the Smart Education project, which brings cutting-edge training opportunities for librarians through cross-border cooperation with the Czech Republic.

Discover how Slovak libraries are evolving into Smart Education Centers, equipping users with maker technologies, robots, and construction kits. Learn about the challenges and successes of implementing SmartLabs, their impact on communities, and the future of library-driven innovation.

Michaela Bežová is the Director of Modern Digital Collections Division of the National Library of the Czech Republic. The Division of Modern Digital Collections consists of 3 departments that are in charge of creating and managing standards for the digitization of modern collections, managing of digital content and also archiving web content. Michaela Bežová leads the whole section, communicates inside and outside the library, cooperates with other libraries and institutions and is also involved in the library’s research projects.

Presentation: Receipt of Electronic Publications in the National Library of the Czech Republic
The Czech Republic still has not resolved the legislation for the legal deposit of electronic publications. This is the fourth time that laws have been amended in the legislative process, and the whole process takes more than 10 years. This makes the Czech Republic one of the last european countries that has not yet legislatively addressed this issue.

The National Library has developed a system for the receipt and processing of electronic publications, which includes their storage in a long-term archive and their accessibility in the digital library. This year, the library plans to introduce cooperation with publishers to voluntarily submit their electronic publications on a contractual basis.

The paper will present the workflow for the receipt and processing of electronic publications, the formats accepted by the library, and how the publications are displayed in the digital library.

Jan Brase has a degree in Mathematics and a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Hannover, Germany. From 2005 he was coordinating the research issues in the field digital libraries for the German National Library for Science and Technology (TIB). He established the founding of the international consortium DataCite in 2009, a global consortium of libraries and information institutions to support the publication and citation of research data. He was head of DataCite until 2015 when he became head of research and development at the Goettingen State and University library (SUB). At SUB Jan Brase is also the scientific director of the eResearch-Alliance, the central coordination office off all research data related services on campus.

Dr. Brase is President of the International Council of Scientific and Technical Information (ICSTI). In 2011 he received the German Library Hi-Tech award.

Presentation: Academic Cloud: Offering centralised services for research
At the Göttingen Campus the Göttingen eResearch Alliance (eRA) is the central contact point for Research Data Management. The eRA offers consultation and training and also hosts multiple services for researchers, including data repositories, Data management planning tools, Identifier services etc. Users can access all these by a central authentication infrastructure: The Academic Cloud.

In this presentation we will introduce the Academic Cloud and the underlying services and discuss the plans and perspectives to widen the services for other universities in the state of Lower Saxony and beyond.

Illyria Brejchová is a digital curator and developer with first-hand experience building data repositories in the arts and humanities in the Islandora system as part of the Digitalia MUNI ARTS infrastructure. The infrastructure aims to not only secure the long-term preservation of research data, but also to enrich their metadata, and provide tools on top of the repository facilitating new types of research in digital humanities. Thanks to Illyria’s education in both computer science and library and information science she is involved in the entire development process from the initial stakeholder interviews and metadata modelling to implementation and user testing. She has a particular interest in data integration and linked data. She is involved in the projects LINDAT/CLARIAH-CZ and EOSC CZ.

Presentation: Digitalia MUNI ARTS: A Research Infrastructure for Arts and Humanities
Humanities researchers need sustainable repositories to store, manage, present, and integrate their research data following FAIR principles. The Digitalia MUNI ARTS infrastructure has been helping research teams achieve this goal at the faculty level for the past six years. The team has developed a workflow for building highly customized user-centred repositories in the Islandora Digital Assets Management System. This presentation will introduce this workflow and discuss the processes of requirement specification, domain modelling, data migration, user interface creation, and user testing on the use case of archaeological datasets in the Archaeo3Data repository.

Prague University of Economics and Business fellow and researcher focused on the intelligence studies, particularly on the CI, TECHINT, OSINT domains. Dr. Jan Černý‘s research activities cover topics on external data and information environment analysis of enterprises, early warning systems, surface web & deep web investigations, search strategy and tactics, and digital forensics. He also deals with public librarianship management, specifically on the role of libraries in today’s competitive environment.

Tom Cramer is the Chief Technology Strategist and Associate Director of Digital Library Systems and Services for the Stanford University Libraries. He directs the Stanford Digital Repository, and oversees the technical development and delivery of Stanford’s digital library services, including digitization, management, preservation and access of digital resources that support teaching, learning and research.

Tomáš Foltýn is the graduate of the Faculty of Arts of the University of Pardubice, where he completed his master studies in the field of cultural history in 2008. Since 2007 he worked in the Digitization Department of the National Library of Czech Republic, first as Project Manager, then as the Head of the Metadata Creation and Management Department. In January 2013, he was appointed as Collections´ Management Division Director. On May 1st 2021, he became the General Director of the National Library of the Czech Republic.

Tomáš Foltýn was involved in various national and international research projects, is an expert guarantor of the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic VISK 7 Funding Mechanism, the regular member of the Central Library Council of the Czech Republic, CENL Executive Committee Member etc. From the professional perspective, he is interested especially in the area of the effective collections´ management and long-term preservation of the modern collections including the digital content. During last years, he started to be involved also in various activities connected with digital humanities, R&D projects and cultural diplomacy.

Presentation: Modernization of the core library systems – are we looking forward to the successful data big-bang or is the professional „Freddy Krueger“ coming?
The national libraries, including the National Library of the Czech Republic, are currently facing one of the biggest challenges in their modern history – to the transformation of their library catalogues to a new generation of linked library information systems. From the historical perspective of the last decades, this change can be perhaps paralleled only to the time, when paper cards catalogues were replaced to the first electronic catalogues. It is an interesting fact that many libraries are still using these first eCatalogues, some for more than thirty years, with many individual utilities, scripts and features. This will make this change very difficult and painful. However, it is necessary to address this decision systematically, not only by changing the library system itself, but also think about the formats of bibliographic metadata and cataloguing guidelines. The National Library of the Czech Republic is currently undertaking such a structural change, which is also linked to number of changes in the functions of other central services, including the Union Catalogue, National Authorities, ISBN´s or Ask the Library service. What is the current status of this transformation, what is its overall conception and is the National Library worried about blind paths and bad decisions? That is what this presentation will be about…

Patrick Hochstenbach has been working for digital libraries for over 25 years. He created the first implementation of the SFX linking server and was involved in the standardization of the OpenURL protocol. Patrick is currently employed by Ghent University Library in Belgium and has started in 2021 a PHD research project on Decentralized Scholarly Publication at IMEC in Belgium with Ruben Verborgh and Herbert Van de Sompel as promoters.

Presentation: The Claims Network: Collecting Research, Education, Impact and Leadership Claims on the Decentralized Web
Research assessment is an integral part of academic life and measures the quality of the research output and, by cumulative evaluations, contributes to the assessment of each researcher. Assessment faces numerous challenges, chief among them being the limited set of quantitative indicators that depend on closed proprietary data infrastructures and primarily emphasize a narrow range of research activities. In 2024, SURF (the ICR cooperative of Dutch education and research institutions) and IMEC-IDLab (the Flemish Internet Technology and Data Science Lab) created an experimental, decentralized Claims Network to collect and organize so called ‘REIL’ (Research, Education, Impact and Leadership) claims. The Claims Network includes a national academic Mastodon service, claim bots, data summarization services and an experimental claims service that acts as a next-generation CRIS system. In this presentation we will provide the rationale of this service, the implementation, a demonstration, and the start of a specification for all the protocols involved. We hope to gather feedback and connect with interested parties to discuss the implementation of similar networks in Europe.

Andrea Hrckova comes from a library and information science background but has been working in AI research for several years. Her interdisciplinary focus combines methods from information science and artificial intelligence, bringing both human-centered and data-driven perspectives to AI research and design.

At the Kempelen Institute of Intelligent Technologies (KInIT), she concentrates on understanding user needs and adapting AI tools to support them, particularly in supporting time-consuming and repetitive tasks for diverse users, from fact-checkers to AI doctoral students.

Her research also explores the qualitative aspects of datasets for AI models. She has contributed to expert dataset preparation, including datasets addressing gender stereotypes and disinformation, and has participated in experiments leveraging these datasets. Passionate about interdisciplinary collaboration, Andrea actively works on projects that connect AI with the social sciences and emphasizes precise terminology to enhance clarity in AI research.

Presentation: Library and Information Professionals and AI: A Possible Future of Collaboration
The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) has sparked widespread debate about its impact on various professions, including library and information science. With both high expectations and lingering skepticism, uncertainty surrounds the evolving role of human professionals in an increasingly technology-driven world.

This paper explores the real-world applications of AI in library and information science and examines the role of human professionals in this evolving landscape. While AI can assist in automating repetitive and time-consuming tasks like cataloging, questions remain about whether full automation is desirable within the profession and whether AI’s potential extends beyond routine tasks. In general, co-creative and design thinking approaches have proven to be highly effective in developing AI-driven solutions for automation while maintaining human oversight.

Our research, conducted with 28 AI doctoral candidates from 13 European countries, demonstrates the value of this approach. The study revealed significant challenges in the findability and quality of AI resources, including datasets, models, and experiments. These findings highlight the critical need for interdisciplinary cooperation in data management, involving AI scientists, ethicists, librarians, and information professionals. Another key challenge identified was research dissemination, which led to the development of an AI tool for improving the comprehensibility of research publications for the public. This tool may be integrated into the common European platform, further enhancing knowledge-sharing across disciplines.

At present, AI is largely limited to tasks involving searching, memorization, and the imitation of creativity and empathy (such as in library marketing). It falls short in areas requiring nuanced decision-making, complex reasoning, and contextual understanding. However, AI can serve as a valuable tool for augmenting human expertise, particularly in data-driven and computational tasks. Ultimately, the distinct yet complementary strengths of AI and human professionals suggest that their future is not one of competition, but of a mutually beneficial collaboration.

Neil Jefferies is Executive Director of the Open Preservation Foundation, a Director of Data Futures GmbH and a Digital Innovation Specialist at the Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford. He is a co-creator of the International Image Interoperability Framework and the Oxford Common File Layout, Community Manager for the SWORD protocol and a member of the Bit List Council for the Digital Preservation Coalition. His research interests include knowledge and information models, APIs for enhancing access to digital resources, digital preservation and long-terms access, and the mechanisms of digital scholarship. He teaches on various topics on Oxford’s MSc in Digital Scholarship and the Digital Humanities Summer School.

Presentation: Why Open Infrastructure is Essential for Long Term Access
Digital preservation for long-term access to information is an exercise in mastering the art of the exit strategy. Unlike physical materials, digital materials exist in an environment characterized by rapid change. Obsolescence, of software, hardware, systems and organizations, represent existential threats to the survival of knowledge. However, the primary risks to materials, aside from human error, accrue out of the transitions necessitated by obsolescence.

Open Infrastructure, comprising Open Source Software, Open Standards and Open Information Resources, can help mitigate these risks and increase the likelihood that long-term access goals can be realized. While an organization need not, and probably will not, rely entirely on Open Infrastructure for its digital preservation needs, the tactical deployment of open components can be highly effective.

Riitta Koikkalainen makes her living an information specialist in The National Library of Finland, as an expert on scholarly publishing and communication. As a part of her job, she coordinates the work of the Kotoistus, service in-between internationalisation and localisation. Current editor-in-chief of Tietolinja. Riitta is also one of the founders of the philosophical magazine niin & näin and a member of it’s editorial board. From the very beginning of her life in academia she has had a strong interest on the sociology of knowledge. There are no meanings outside social interaction, at least such that could be (re)presented purely as such. And this makes the world a very interesting place. You can find her on Twitter @Riitta_AK, and on Mastodon @RiittaK@mastodon.social

Anthony Leroy is a software engineer at the Libraries of the Université libre de Bruxelles (Belgium) since 2011.He is in charge of the digitization infrastructure and the digital preservation program of the University Libraries. He coordinates the activities of the SAFE distributed preservation network, an international LOCKSS network operated by seven partner universities. He is also actively involved in various research data management activities at ULB.Anthony is an engineer in electronics and telecommunications with a PhD in microelectronics (ULB) and has been a researcher for almost ten years in collaboration with several industrial partners.

Dr. Norman Meuschke’s main research interests are methods for semantic similarity analysis and their application for information retrieval. Beyond his core research, he is interested in applied data science and knowledge management challenges and the application of blockchain technology to tackle these challenges.

His research spans the fields of:

• Information Retrieval (esp. for text, images, and mathematical content)
• Natural Language Processing
• Plagiarism Detection
• Citation and Link Analysis
• Blockchain Technology
• Information Visualization

Presentation: Libraries in the Age of AI: Opportunities and Challenges
The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence presents unparalleled transformative opportunities but also raises pressing challenges that will shape how we live, work, and define our future. Libraries stand at the forefront of this transformative era, as AI will profoundly impact their processes and services. To remain relevant and accessible, libraries must adapt rapidly. This talk will demonstrate how libraries can leverage AI to uncover hidden insights from vast collections, enrich user services, and streamline operations by presenting ongoing research projects at the GippLab (www.gipplab.org). The presented case studies illustrate innovations ranging from enhanced metadata creation and automated cataloging to improved access, retrieval, and personalized AI-driven research assistance. The talk will also highlight the ethical, technical, legal, financial, and social challenges posed by AI, aiming to spark a discussion on how libraries can embrace emerging opportunities while safeguarding their core values.

David Minor works at the University of California, San Diego, where he is the Director of the Research Data Curation Program in the UC San Diego Library. In this role he helps define and lead work needed for the contemporary and long-term management digital resources. His position includes significant interaction with stakeholders on the UC San Diego campus, throughout the UC System, and national initiatives. His program also includes management of Chronopolis, a national-scale digital preservation network.

With over 15 years of experience in libraries and scholarly publishing, Liudmyla Trotsenko has focused on strengthening the role of libraries in supporting academic research. At the library of Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, she managed journal support services and provided guidance to researchers on academic writing, research integrity, intellectual property, and research evaluation.

Currently leading the Open Science Department at Wrocław University of Science and Technology, Liudmyla plays a key role in implementing Open Science policies and enhancing the library’s support for research and education. This work includes fostering Open Science practices and reinforcing the library’s position within the academic infrastructure.

Presentation: Fostering Open Science Culture in Unite!Alliance: The Wrocław Tech Experience
The transition towards Open Science requires not only institutional commitment but also international collaboration. This presentation will showcase how Wrocław University of Science and Technology (Wrocław Tech), as part of the Unite! Alliance, has actively contributed to advancing Open Science in the European higher education landscape.

Through Unite!Widening, a dedicated project aimed at strengthening Open Science capacity in Widening countries, Wrocław Tech has been instrumental in developing policies, organizing Open Science forums, and co-authoring a White Paper with recommendations for universities. The presentation will highlight key initiatives, including Wrocław Tech’s Open Science Forum, which gathered experts and policymakers to discuss best practices in research openness, as well as ongoing efforts to integrate Open Science principles into university governance.

By sharing our case study, we aim to illustrate the challenges and opportunities that come with embedding Open Science in institutional frameworks and international alliances. The session will also reflect on the broader impact of Unite! Alliance’s Open Science policy recommendations and explore the next steps towards fostering a more inclusive and transparent scientific environment across Europe.

Péter Váradi, PhD, has been actively involved in research projects primarily focused on philosophy, educational research, and crime prevention. His work has contributed to research and development programs centered on intentionality, experience, and social issues.

Key Research Projects:

• Educational research and development at the Educational Research and Development Institute (TÁMOP 3.1.1-08/1-2008-002).
• OTKA 72360 – “Intentionality and Experience” research project.
• Researcher in the NKFP 5/073/04 project (ELTE).
• National Institute of Criminology – “Crime Prevention Research Project” (Project No. II./2.4).

Péter Váradi’s research activity is interdisciplinary, combining philosophical and social science perspectives, with a particular focus on theories of intentionality, educational innovations, and the scientific study of social challenges.

Project Management Experience:
Since 2010, Péter Váradi is Editor-in-chief of L’Harmattan Publishing House, and has led several major EU-funded projects, primarily focused on literary translation and cultural support. He has managed substantial funding within the framework of GINOP and EU literary translation programs, handling projects worth tens of millions of HUF and EUR.

Scientific and Professional Memberships:

• Editor of Aspecto, a philosophy journal.
• Member and Secretary of the Hungarian Phenomenological Association (2007–2015).
• Trustee of Uránia Knowledge Dissemination Foundation.

Presentation: Open Access Book Publishing and Discovery Platform: AI-Assisted Solutions
L’Harmattan Publishing House (Budapest) launched an open-access digital publishing platform in 2022, specializing in Hungarian, English, and French monographs and edited volumes. Currently, the platform (openaccess.pub) hosts over 100 publications under open licensing, enriched with structured metadata for enhanced discoverability.

In 2024, we initiated an R&D project focusing on AI-driven discovery services and the establishment of strategic partnerships in Central Europe to support Gold and Diamond Open Access publishing models. This presentation provides an in-depth technical overview of the platform, highlighting our AI-based multilingual search system and interactive content extraction tool, both developed in-house.

We will detail the end-to-end development cycle, including system design, implementation challenges, and iterations where specific elements were retained or discarded. Additionally, the session will cover the system’s technological stack, including database management solutions, integrated AI tools, and large language models (LLMs) employed for text processing and discovery optimization. Our goal is to share insights into the platform’s development process, including key achievements and encountered obstacles.

Furthermore, we will demonstrate core functionalities and services of the publishing platform and outline our publication framework, aligning with the latest PALOMERA Recommendations for Open Access Books.

Petr Žabička is an expert in library automation with experience in digitisation, digital libraries, and machine learning. As an associate director at the Moravian Library, he is responsible for research and development projects. Currently, his activities focus on implementing machine learning technologies to enhance access to digitised documents. He has been involved in the PERO project, which aimed to improve the accuracy of digitised texts through the application of machine learning algorithms to optical character recognition (OCR). Previously, he led projects related to map digitisation, online access to digitised maps, and the development of the Czech library portal Knihovny.cz.

During his studies in computer science at Masaryk University, Jan Rychtář worked as a developer at the Moravian Library, focusing on providing access to digitized collections and automating data processing, particularly data mining from library catalogs.

Afterwards, he spent ten years as an independent software developer. He continued developing software for libraries and became the author and lead developer of the web interface for the digital library Kramerius. He has also been significantly involved in its strategic direction for many years.

In addition to the library sector, he has worked on commercial projects developing enterprise systems and software tools for process automation.

In 2021, he co-founded Trinera s.r.o., where he currently serves as director. The company specializes in integrating large-scale library data with modern technologies, especially artificial intelligence. Under his leadership, the team helps memory institutions efficiently manage data, automate processes, and create user-friendly interfaces for accessing digitized collections.

Presentation: AI/ML in Digital Libraries: Designing for Clarity and Control
Digital libraries are increasingly using artificial intelligence and machine learning to improve their functionality. However, adding AI/ML features to existing library systems introduces new challenges—especially when designing user interfaces. This presentation shares experiences from the Kramerius digital library system. It discusses design considerations for creating interfaces that integrate AI, ensuring intuitiveness, transparency, and user-friendliness. Particular emphasis is placed on practical strategies for providing clear user feedback and maintaining user control when interacting with AI-driven features.

Anastasia Zhukova has completed her Engineering degree (Diploma in Information Technology) at Moscow Aviation Institute (National Research University) and proceeded with her Master’s studies at the University of Konstanz with a focus on Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing. She compiled her master’s thesis on the topic of Automated Identification of Framing by Word Choice and Labeling to Reveal Media Bias in News Articles.

Her research interests focus on two projects: identifying media bias and developing an AI assistant for plant operations. The first project is interdisciplinary research that applies cross-document coreference resolution to resolve mentions with high lexical diversity to automatically identify media bias by word choice and labeling. The second project is an industry project focusing on the domain adaptation of language models, information retrieval and information extraction in the low resource setup.

Anastasia’s prime interest lies in the areas of:

• Applied Natural Language Processing
• Cross-document coreference resolution
• Domain adaptation of language models
• NLP for the low-resource languages, e.g., German
• Information visualization