CFP: Artificial Intelligence in Collection Development and Acquisitions (Webinar - February 2027) - IFLA Acquisitions and Collection Development Section

Call for Proposals: Artificial Intelligence in Collection Development and Acquisitions

IFLA Acquisitions and Collection Development Section — Webinar, February 2027

Release date: 12 October, 2026

 

The Acquisitions and Collection Development Section (ACD) of IFLA invites proposals for a webinar on the use of artificial intelligence in collection development and acquisitions, to be held in February 2027.

AI tools are beginning to change how libraries build and manage their collections. Librarians are using them to analyze usage patterns, anticipate demand, and make the routine work of acquisitions and collection management faster and more responsive to what users need. This webinar is mostly about those opportunities. We also want to consider the risks, from selection bias to recommendations for outdated or nonexistent material to the environmental cost of large language models and open questions about author rights. We are sure that creative work is being done in this area and are looking forward to hearing from the librarians doing it.

We are looking for case studies from libraries of different sizes, types, and regions. We are less interested in speculation about what AI might someday do than in accounts of what libraries are actually doing now: what has worked, what has not, and what others should know before trying something similar.

Our focus is on AI as a tool for doing the work of collection development and acquisitions: informing selection and deselection, analyzing use, and improving acquisitions workflows. We are not addressing the wider set of AI questions that collections and acquisitions librarians have to manage but that fall outside that work, such as AI clauses in license agreements or AI features in discovery tools.

Topics

We welcome proposals on any aspect of AI in collection development and acquisitions, including:

• Using AI to analyze collection usage or to predict future demand
• Applying AI to selection, deselection, or collection assessment
• Building more efficient acquisitions and collection management workflows
• Using AI to support acquisitions in resource-constrained libraries, including identifying open, free, or low-cost resources; developing lightweight workflows where dedicated systems are unavailable; and supporting library staff without formal LIS training
• Vendor tools and services that incorporate AI in collections and acquisitions workflows, and how librarians are using them
• Managing the risks of AI, including bias, accuracy, transparency, and accountability
• Ethical, environmental, and author-rights considerations in adopting AI
• Skepticism grounded in experience: if you have tried these tools and concluded they are not worth it, we would like to hear that too

Format

The webinar will be held online in February 2027. The session will be recorded and made available through the IFLA Library and the Section’s channels under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license.

Language

The language of the session is expected to be English. Presentations may be delivered in any of the IFLA official languages (Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Russian, or Spanish), but presentation slides must be provided in English.

Important dates

• 20 November 2026 — Proposal deadline
• 20 December 2026 — Notification of acceptance
• February 2027 — Webinar

What to submit

Please provide the following, in English:

• Name(s), affiliation(s), and contact information, including email, for all presenters
• Proposed presentation title
• An abstract of no more than 300 words describing the topic, the main points, and the intended audience
• A brief biography of no more than 100 words for each presenter

Send proposals by 20 November 2026 by email to:

Michael Levine-Clark, chair of ACD AI working group, michael.levine-clark@du.edu

Selection

Proposals will be reviewed by the ACD working group. In choosing presentations, we will consider relevance, originality, and clarity, and we will aim for a program that reflects a range of institutional sizes and types and a diversity of geographic perspectives.

Please note

Presenters must be available to take part in the live webinar in February 2027 (Date and time to be determined). Presentations should be original work not previously published or presented elsewhere. There is no cost to submit a proposal or to present, and the webinar will be free to attend.