CILIP Conference 2025 took place in Birmingham at the start of July, bringing together information professionals from across sectors. The two-day conference enabled hundreds of delegates to explore the latest developments in the profession and connect with colleagues form the UK and around the world. The theme of this year’s conference was North Star: asserting our ethical principles and leading through change.

And taking that theme as the starting point for her Presidential Address, Sue Lacey Bryant delivered a rallying call – touching on the challenges and opportunities faced by the profession and wider society in age that is increasingly shaped by technology. Here we publish Sue’s Presidential address in full.

Sue Lacey Bryant – Presidential Address, 2025.

What an absolute delight and honour to give this Presidential address. Indeed, the Presidential role is a joyful one, bringing opportunities to hear about your work, to see the difference that the profession makes, and to feel such pride in our accomplishments.

The North Star has come to symbolise a guiding light – one that gives clarity and which prompts us to re-consider our direction amidst uncertainty. At Conference we are exploring how our ‘North Star’ ethical principles help us navigate the opportunities and the challenges we face. Our speakers are shining a light on a series of critical issues and controversies.

As we sit around the table in the evenings, we – like society as a whole – can surely smell the coffee?

We are living through a period of such significant societal transition that we might risk sinking into doomscrolling or become absorbed with existential threats. Let us do neither. The essence of existentialism is that because we are free, we are also inherently responsible.

Reflecting on the speed of technological advances

It's 50 years since James Burke posed the question of What happens when an accelerated rate of innovation becomes too much for the average person to handle, and what this means for individual power, liberty, and privacy?¹

As information professionals we are beginning to glimpse answers to these questions. For good and ill, we are experiencing change at unprecedented speed. The twin themes of Conference 2025 – our ethical framework and leading through change – could not be more relevant as we shape our strategic and personal responses.

While the burden of information overload is hardly new, navigating today’s information-rich environment is a huge challenge – for information professionals as for everyone seeking to use reliable information.

The profession has always responded by providing vital, up-to-date information resources, delivering effective services, and introducing automation. We have developed further roles as trusted gatekeepers to information – such as knowledge managers, clinical librarians, and information brokers.

Now we have remarkable opportunities to bring new technologies into our services. Sure, it’s scary – yet there have never been enough of us, never enough resource to serve all the people we would want to reach. That’s why library, knowledge and information leaders across the globe are incorporating chatbots, mobile apps, and XR into the library experience - enriching and evolving services, as we always have.²

We have heard different perspectives on how we can, should, and shouldn’t use AI. Global innovator Gene Tan also shared his Vision for the Future of Libraries and Generative AI.

I urge you to share what you learn here, signpost colleagues to articles in Information Professional magazine, develop communities of practice on tech – and let CILIP know what support you need.

It’s vital; not least because breakthroughs in quantum computing are already on the horizon and I read that quantum computing will be a game-changer for library operations – enabling faster, more efficient information processing; improved data storage and retrieval, advanced data analysis, enhanced search capabilities, and facilitating research.³

Lest you are thinking, ‘What will this mean for our jobs?’ CILIP’s research on the impact of AI and machine learning concluded that some jobs will disappear, many will change, and many others will be created.⁴ The future of AI will be about augmenting human capabilities, not replacing them.

How will this play out? Researchers at the MIT Sloan management school have identified the human strengths to complement the shortcomings of AI and make organisations successful.⁵

1. Empathy enables us to create meaningful connections
2. Our Presence and networking fosters collaboration and innovation
3. Creativity, humour and improvisation remain uniquely human abilities
4. Our Hope, vision, leadership and perseverance, embody the human spirit
5. Plus, while AI struggles to grasp concepts like accountability, we can navigate the nuance of Opinion, judgment and ethical values. 5

Our ethics

This brings us to the nub of it. It is where ethics take a backseat that AI crosses the line from being a helpful tool to becoming a threat.⁶

We are not naïve. We know human bias taints research, human ignorance fuels misinformation, and humans inject disinformation. Algorithms - and considerable speculative investor capital – are now delivering all of these on steroids.

We know that our institutions are being besieged, that organisations face a significant “data-trust-deficit”, 7 that low levels of health literacy have a detrimental impact on health outcomes.8

Yet, as information professionals we are neither helpless nor hopeless, and we are Trusted - an increasingly rare asset in this day and age. As Louis Coiffait-Gunn, CILIP’s Chief Executive Officer, mentioned we come in third after nurses and pilots in a recent Ipsos Veracity Index.⁹ Those with a nurse appointment, or planning to fly in the coming months, are probably OK with this…

Our practice is underpinned both by Ethical Principles and by a commitment to Continuing Professional Development, informed by our Professional Knowledge and Skills Base. Ethics are at our centre.

These principles, to which CILIP members commit, do not place us in a neutral position; they are values driven. They speak of: Human rights; Access to knowledge; Intellectual freedom; Impartiality; Confidentiality; and Information literacy.

As we support the AI literacy that society so badly needs, we draw on extensive work building information literacy skills programmes in all of our sectors.

And I’m pleased that CILIP will shortly begin piloting Super Searchers, in partnership with Google, to equip young people with the tools and skills they need to find and critically evaluate online information.

The impact the profession makes

Opening doors to learning and opportunity is just one way in which we make a profound difference to people’s lives.

Promoting the evidence of our impact as a profession is one of the themes of my year as President. Yes, there is much more for us All to do together but rest assured that our advocacy work has Reach. At the Carnegies, many authors and illustrators praised the work of librarians. In the House of Lords, one peer after another struggled to compress their love of libraries into Just a Minute. In Westminster Hall, one MP after another testified to the impact of libraries on their lives and careers. All these key influencers know that #LibrariesChangeLives.

Inevitably, we must also report against the bottom line. Our recent CILIP Employer Partner forum spotlighted evaluation of British Library Business and IP Centres, and of health libraries. In a recent Information Professional article I signposted reports on public libraries.

I encourage you to draw on all this evidence whenever you can. How might you work with others to sing out our story as advocates for the profession? And for CILIP too?

Leadership

Advocacy is a core leadership skill, and Leadership is woven throughout our Conference programme.

Leadership is central to designing, managing, and evaluating information services. We’re grateful to all our speakers for sharing their insights. There will be more on Leadership in CILIP Learn when it is launched next year.

Leadership is about building strong connections, influencing others to achieve a common goal, and having a toolbox of trusted techniques in your pocket.

I try to observe different styles; how individuals flex between them; how leaders empower team members to use their expertise and experience to step into the space.

Leadership is not the preserve of an individual senior manager. The ability to take a primary role, to be influential, extends much further – including through roles we take as volunteers.

And so Thank You to everyone who takes a leading role in CILIP’s member communities and networks; your vital contribution keeps our profession at the top of our game.

Each generation of leaders faces new situations. Who here will be among the first to lead people And AI agents to modernise services and optimise user experience?

The question isn't simply how fast technology evolves, but how we intentionally shape its trajectory to serve the interests of everyone in our society, especially those facing disadvantages?

Feel the Power

I opened the Conference thanking participants for all you do.

Let me say it again. The contribution each of You makes has never been of greater importance to society. To quote our Poem for Information Professionals (The way, the deep), you are, indeed, “Lifelines on the frontlines of information.”¹⁰

As you go back to the day-job, I invite you to listen out for the Thanks. Catch and hold on to them; maybe think of each as a little piece of starlight to keep in your pocket for when the going gets tough?

In our VUCA world – Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous – it's essential for the profession to be a powerful, positive influence in the present, and into the future.

In the light of our North Star – I urge you to use your influence. Take the lead to shape the library and information services of today and tomorrow. Shine on.

LINKS

• 1. Accelerating change, Wikipedia.  
• 2. What industry leaders predict about the future of libraries. Pressreader, 2025.
• 3. Babajani, A. Quantum Computing: A Game-Changer for Libraries andInformation Centers. InfoSCience Trends, 4 May 2024.
• 4. Research report: The impact of AI, machine learning, automation and robotics on the information profession, CILIP, 2021.
• 5. Eastwood, B. These human capabilities complement AI’s shortcomings, MIT Management Sloan School, June 10 2025.
• 6. Berge van Rooijen, S. When does AI cross the line from tool to threat?, LinkedIN, June 2025.
• 7. New research finds data trust deficit with lessons for policymakers, Ipsos, July 2014.
• 8. Improving health literacy to reduce health inequalities, Public Health England, 2015
• 9. Ipsos Veracity Index 2023: Trust in professions survey. Dec 2023.
• 10. Dastidar, R. The way, the deep – a new poem for the profession