Name: Death, AI and Librarianship - A Professor R. David Lankes Lecture
Start: 2026-03-03T11:00:00+00:00
End: 2026-03-03T12:00:00+00:00
Location: National Library of Scotland

Death, AI and Librarianship - A Professor R. David Lankes Lecture

Join us for a lecture by visiting Professor and Author R. David Lankes, exploring his recent book 'Triptych: Death, AI and Librarianship'
About this Event

Join CILIPS for a special event taking place in Edinburgh, delivered in partnership with the Scottish Library and Information Council (SLIC), where we are delighted to welcome Professor R. David Lankes for a one hour lecture in the National Library of Scotland, George IV Bridge. The lecture will begin at 11am and finish at 12pm, please ensure that you arrive promptly and take your seat before the lecture begins.

This event is open to all and free to attend, but please make sure to register for your ticket in advance.

R. David Lankes is the Virginia and Charles Bowden Professor of Librarianship at University of Texas at Austin. He is a passionate advocate for libraries and their essential role in today's society earning him the American Library Association's Isadore Gilbert Mudge Award for distinguished contribution to reference librarianship in 2021 and the Ken Haycock Award for Promoting Librarianship in 2016. His book, The Atlas of New Librarianship won the 2012 ABC-CLIO/Greenwood Award for the Best Book in Library Literature. He has always been interested in combining theory and practice to create active research projects that make a difference.

In this one hour talk Professor Lankes will be speaking on the topic of his recent book Triptych: Death, AI and Librarianship and will look at how libraries in Scotland, the US and elsewhere can save lives by fostering greater social participation and combating key societal challenges such as the rising tide of deaths of despair. Professor Lankes believes that libraries that serve cities, towns, schools, hospitals, governments, law firms and academic institutions will all be needed to push back attacks of anti-intellectual forces, take up opportunities for lifting communities, and fight a growing wave of anti-democratic trends in global politics.