**Apologies for cross posting**

Baltimore, MD | August 5, 2025 - The National Information Standards
Organization (NISO) today announces the publication of “Generative
Artificial Intelligence and the NISO Open Discovery Initiative,” a report
on the 2024 AI in web-scale library discovery services survey undertaken by
the NISO Open Discovery Initiative (ODI) Standing Committee.

The ODI most recently updated its Recommended Practice, “Promoting
Transparency in Discovery,” in 2020, several years before large-scale
Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools emerged into the public’s
view in late 2023. Much as web-scale discovery changed the library
discovery environment around 2010, Generative AI has the potential to be
similarly revolutionary, affecting the way library users do their research
and content providers share their full text and indexing.


To better understand the specific areas of interest and concern among
participants in the discovery ecosystem, the ODI conducted a survey of
constituents in September–October 2024, following several months of
planning. The findings from that survey, detailing the hopes and fears of
libraries and content providers regarding the impact of AI on content
discovery, are detailed in the report. The report also covers the specific
areas of work that the ODI will be taking on in response over the months to
come.

“The results of the survey show just how diverse attitudes towards AI are,”
says Rachel Kessler, Product Manager at Clarivate and co-chair of the ODI
Standing Committee. “As the technology evolves and knowledge grows,
opinions will continue to shift. It is critical to foster a spirit of
transparency and cooperation within the discovery community to maintain an
open dialogue”


“The survey results illustrate the complexity of adapting generative AI
when it comes to our library discovery tools,” added Ken Varnum, Senior
Program Manager and Discovery Strategist at the University of Michigan. “I
look forward to working with the ODI to find ways to bring some
transparency to these new technologies.”

The committee invites community feedback on their findings and hopes to use
the survey results to develop guides aiding the community in navigating
this ever-evolving technology.

Access the full report and survey results.

<https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/m0fs2pqtaqp2mkbdd35o3/NISO-ODI-Survey-Report-GenAI-an[%E2%80%A6]gust2025.pdf?rlkey=4qlcvtj3ji55umugugk9flmjv&st=dgfxekb8&dl=0>

About NISO


Based in Baltimore, MD, NISO’s mission is to build knowledge, foster
discussion, and advance authoritative standards development through
collaboration among the cultural, scholarly, scientific, and professional
communities. To fulfill this mission, NISO engages with libraries,
publishers, information aggregators, and other organizations that support
learning, research, and scholarship through the creation, organization,
management, and curation of knowledge. NISO works with intersecting
communities of interest and across the entire life cycle of information
standards. NISO is a not-for-profit association accredited by the American
National Standards Institute (ANSI). For more information, visit the NISO
website (https://niso.org) or contact us at [log in to unmask]



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