Southern Library Support Staff Conference 2026

Are your library supporters adequate advocates? We know that people love your library and use your library, but how do you get them to be vocal about their support? Join us as we teach you how to level up your library supporters into advocacy. You'll leave with ideas for increasing their visibility and ideas for increasing your brand recognition.

Algorithms, Influence, and the Library’s New Role in the Age of AI - Charisse Brent
With this lightning talk presentation, I aim to explore how artificial intelligence has transformed propaganda from something visible and centralized into something invisible and personalized. What once appeared in posters or broadcasts now lives in algorithms that predict and manipulate human behavior—deciding what we see, believe, and even feel. This new wave of AI-driven propaganda thrives not on persuasion alone, but on precision—learning from our data, feeding our emotions, and shaping our worldviews without our awareness.
In this talk, I argue that libraries—long defenders of truth, access, and equity—stand at a critical crossroads. As AI becomes embedded in search systems, discovery tools, and metadata, libraries must evolve from being passive providers of information to active mediators of algorithmic influence. The presentation calls on librarians to champion algorithmic literacy, demand transparency in AI systems, and uphold human-centered ethics in technology use. Ultimately, it’s a call to action: in a world where machines increasingly shape what we know, libraries must lead the movement to ensure that knowledge remains a human right, not a data product.

From Archive to Algorithm: Turning Staff Expertise into AI Power - Jim Duran
Library special collections rely on experienced staff and so do effective AI tools. At the Vanderbilt Television News Archive, domain expertise from long-serving staff is helping shape smarter machine learning tools. This session highlights how staff knowledge is translated into AI applications that improve processing, cataloging, and research support.

Troubleshooting AI Requests for Interlibrary Loan - Amanda Hardin, Kathy Foushee
This presentation will focus on Western Kentucky University Libraries’ experience with incorrect citations created by AI and their effect on Interlibrary Loan requests. We will share our experience with actual AI created Interlibrary Loan requests and provide examples to assist others in identifying AI generated citations.

This presentation will be a panel discussion that will provide an overview of safety and security at Western Kentucky University Libraries. The panel will be available to field questions about handling emergency situations, overseeing student patrollers, communication, cameras, tools and other issues relating to safety and security in an academic library. Panel members from Western Kentucky University Libraries' Access Services Dept. are: Amanda Hardin, Tishiba Roberson, Jessica Simpson, Daniel Newman and Josh Salley.

The David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Duke University employees 10-15 interns each year. These interns are spread across four departments (Research Services, University Archives, Collection Development, Technical Services) and two physical locations. Internships are designed to give students interested in libraries and archives experience with reference, public service, instruction, and processing. What these internships are not designed to do is facilitate connections amongst the interns or offer opportunities to build rapport and create networking opportunities with staff other than their direct supervisors.


This panel will discuss the evolution of intern engagement within the Rubenstein Library- recognition of the intermediate space interns inhabit in organizational hierarchies - more skilled than student workers, but less qualified than staff; the hard skills they are taught and the “soft-ish” skills they are expected to pick up; and how the earliest opportunities for establishing rapport and building networks must be seeded by staff.  Interns are future librarians, archivists, community activists, and leaders. The support we provide during their internships will play a critical role in their development as professionals and future colleagues.