Harnessing AI for Discovery: Analyzing Impact Across Library Users and Insights from Publishers

Duration: 31 mins
Publication Date: May 2025

About the session

How is artificial intelligence transforming the way researchers discover and engage with scholarly content? This session explores the impact of AI-powered tools on discovery and usage through the lens of JSTOR’s 18-month pilot of an interactive research tool. Attendees will gain insights from key data and real-world applications that demonstrate how AI-enabled tools have impacted content discoverability user engagement, and addressed persistent challenges in scholarly publishing and academic libraries.

Collection

Annual Meeting (2025)

Speakers

VP, Published Content, ITHAKA

John is the Vice President of Published Content on JSTOR and was responsible for global participation on JSTOR prior to moving into this position in 2019. Before working at JSTOR, John worked at ProQuest in various roles for 10 years after being acquired by Softline Information in 2001. Prior to Softline Information, John was an instructor in the field of psychology, developer for online learning programs and a data analyst. Having seen first hand the importance and impact having access to digital content can bring to students, he has worked to provide access to as much scholarly content as possible to researchers over the last 20 years.
Director for Strategic Innovation and Services, Duke University Press

Allison C Belan is the Associate Director for Digital Strategy and Publishing Systems at Duke University Press. Allison works to align all aspects of the Press’s digital publishing strategy and operations to build a digital presence that connects scholars and thinkers to Duke University Press’s publications and that speeds our scholarship to the world. She leads the Scholarly Publishing Collective, a collaboration between non-profit journal publishers that is managed by Duke University Press.
Principal Product Manager, ITHAKA
University of North Carolina Press

Sherer has been the director of UNC Press since 2012. In that time, he has published numerous award-winning books, including two NY Times bestsellers. He has also been PI on several major grants to support OA publishing for monographs. Working with JSTOR and ACLS, he designed the Path to Open program.
Director, University of Michigan Press, University of Michigan

Charles manages the Publishing division of the U-M Library (publishing.umich.edu) which is composed of three parts - University of Michigan Press (UMP), Michigan Publishing Services (MPS), and Deep Blue repository and research data services (DBRRDS). Professionally, he has worked at University of Michigan since 2014. Previously he was in a similar position at Purdue University Libraries and Director of Publications at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. He has have a BA/MA from University of Cambridge in Archaeology and Anthropology and an MBA from Oxford Brookes University.