Information Science - Information Matters

A recent study explored how scholars in the digital humanities research domain are navigating this new and complex landscape. Digital humanities is an interdisciplinary research field where scholars employ digital tools and computational methods to investigate cultural and humanities questions. Drawing on an international survey of 76 respondents and 15 in-depth interviews, the study found that scholars are not simply embracing or rejecting these tools. Instead, they are adopting AI systems cautiously, using them to speed up routine tasks, explore ideas, and build new skills, while navigating problems of accuracy, authorship, and what these systems might mean for the future of scholarship. The big question is no longer just whether AI is impressive, but whether it is becoming a genuine research partner, a useful tool, or, for some, still more of a “dancing bear” than a trusted collaborator. By tracing these mixed reactions and everyday practices, the study offers a grounded look at how AI is beginning to reshape academic life.

Original

March 11, 2026 Tova Harris

Who Gets to Train the Machine? AI, Race, and Storytelling in Library Makerspaces

As generative AI tools move into library makerspaces, they do more than draft metadata or translate text—they reflect the power structures embedded in the spaces where they are deployed. Without intentional design, we risk automating the very inequities libraries seek to dismantle.

February 3, 2026 Elisa Tattersall Wallin

How Will You Respond to the Unacceptable Costs of GenAI?

We must remember that those who profit the most from our growing reliance of GenAI are the tech companies themselves. Meanwhile, the people who are the most excited about AI are the ones who understand it the least. While machine learning can be useful, I argue that GenAI comes at an unacceptable cost. Taking in to consideration GenAI’s role in the spread of disinformation, the complex damages caused to people and the planet along with the proven negative effect to cognitive skills among users, this text advocates for critical perspectives, and ideally, critical refusal of GenAI.

Featured INFideos

January 28, 2026 Jenna Hartel

Balloon Animal Twisting: An Information Workshop

One might expect students of Information Studies to take workshops on Python or metadata. But in an educational adventure I designed and teach, they are busy mastering a different kind of “code”: the interlocking bubbles of charming balloon animals.

Education Featured

January 15, 2026 Dan Wu

Exploring the Future of Human–AI Collaboration: Insights from “Human–AI Interaction and Collaboration”

How should people and AI work together in ways that are useful, ethical, and trustworthy? Edited by Dan Wu and Shaobo Liang (Wuhan University), “Human–AI Interaction and Collaboration” maps the fast-moving terrain where users, systems, and information meet—treating human strengths and machine strengths as complements, not substitutes. The introduction frames collaboration as a user-centered endeavor that must balance capability with ethics, transparency, and trust.

Featured Translation

October 15, 2025 Rachel Williams

Training Librarians for Crisis Communication: Why Virtual Reality Might Be the Answer

When you step into your local public library on a typical afternoon, you might see children and their families gathered for story time, a retiree reading in a corner, or a student hunched over a laptop. But, just as often, librarians encounter a very different scene: a patron in crisis. Public libraries have increasingly become places where people facing houselessness, mental health crises, or other personal struggles turn for help.

Education Featured

August 6, 2025 Jasmine Wemigwans

Looping the Red Thread of Information: Painting a Path of Indigenous Knowledge

As a mixed Ojibwe woman from Wiikwemkoong Unceded Territory, I carry both pride and a sense of responsibility in how I represent my identity through academic and artistic spaces. I recently graduated from the Master of Information in Library Science Program at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Information. My goal is to become a full-time librarian who integrates Indigenous knowledge into library and information systems. I am excited to share my painting with the Information Matters community as one way to contribute an Indigenous perspective in our shared field. This acrylic self-portrait, funded by an Ontario Arts Council bursary, reflects the concept of the “Red Thread of Information” (Bates,1999) and visually embeds my Anishnaabe worldview. The piece invites viewers to reflect on how identity and information phenomenon can be fused together into creative expressions.

Featured InfoFire

May 16, 2025 Shalini Urs

Reframing Information: From “Information as Thing” to “Everything as Document” to the Identity of iSchools — Conversations with Michael Buckland

Michael Buckland, a pivotal figure in information science, has profoundly shaped the field through his scholarship and leadership. In this episode of InfoFire, Buckland engaged with me on foundational concepts, practical applications, and historical perspectives, offering provocative critiques that challenge conventional thinking. He declared “information” a problematic term— “It is a bad word; it is to be abolished”—arguing that its overloaded meanings obscure clarity. Similarly, he labeled bibliometrics a “pseudoscience,” questioning its methodological rigor. These rhetorical provocations underscore his effort to reframe information science around precise, document-centric frameworks.

Original

April 18, 2025 Elisa Tattersall Wallin

All Talk and Few Facts: Reflecting on the Role of Podcasts in Climate Obstruction

What role do podcasts play in spreading information about climate change? For a research project on environmental communication, I explored how these issues are discussed in podcasts. I found that serious channels with the ambition to inform about climate change issues share the space with channels with a dubious agenda and a loose relationship to facts.