Professional Identity, AI and Institutional Change #KRIK

There are short presentations next from the KRIK conference in Zagreb, with the theme of Professional Identity, AI and Institutional Change. As a reminder, the book of abstracts is here https://urn.nsk.hr/urn:nbn:hr:131:308294 The actual presentations are only 10 minutes each so I won't be able to liveblog too much!
Firstly, Professional Identity or Institutional Habitus? from Darren Flynn (University College London, UK). He was presenting from his PhD research. He started by talking about professional identity (about which there is a lot of literature, including specifically librarians' professional identity). Professional context, the professional environment and professional socialisation are contributors to professional identity and Flynn refered to a useful review. However, it isn't simple, and Flynn uses Bordieu's idea of habitus in his research - that how people act and perceive in a given setting is based on "predispositions developed in their sociocultural background". Institutional habitus (a concept from Reay's works) looks at "social composition, predispositions and socio-cultural expectations of an institution".
Flynn wanted to investigate the interaction between social class backgrounds and professional identity. The middle class interviewees felt their professional identity did become more of their personal identity over time, and also felt like librarians when they started working as such, also they perceived the profession as a multi institutional broader place. The working class participants were more likely to keep their personal/professional identity, didn't at once "feel like librarians", and also viewed the profession in a more localised way. Flynn argued that the normatised view of professional identity was more the middle class view.

Next there is Understanding Librarians’ Capacity to Teach AI Literacy: A Participatory SWOT Analysis from Alica Kolarić (University of Zadar, Croatia) (presenter), Ivana Martinović (Strossmayer University of Osijek, Croatia) & Dejana Golenko (University of Rijeka, Croatia). She mentioned the transition of librarians' roles to AI literacy educators, and they wanted to know how Croatian librarians saw themselves in this territory. They used SWOT analysis, gaining their data through workshops, with 90 librarians in total. Strengths are: starting with strong info literacy foundation; teaching capacity (working with various different groups); AI and digital experience and also a readiness to learn and collaborate (including self-reflection, openess). The main weakness prerceived was limited knowledge of AI; some critical and metacognitive gaps; attitudinal issues; organisational constraints. In terms of Opportunities there is: a new educational role; institutional support; professional development (lifelong learning, new tools etc.) and opportunities for collaboration and demand from users.Threats include rapid AI development; resource constraints; changing information environment; and challenges to do with users and ethics. There was also limited recognition of librarians as AI literacy educators.
One of the conclusions is that competencies vary across dofferent library/ user contexts. Another is that librarians are not "starting from zero" and readiness requires building on existing competencies.

Finally in this session, From Awareness to Action: Institutional Readiness of Academic Libraries for Sustainable Development Goals from Branka Marijanović & Ana Marić Turkalj (University of Zagreb, Croatia). They started by introducing the UN SDGs and thinking about what it means to implement them in a specific context, considering how sustainability goals could be implemented. This involves commitment but also needs efficacy (having the resources to do it). They assessed readiness by surveying library managers in 5 categories. They found that commitment is relatively strong, but Strategic Integretion is weak e.g. SDGs are not included in strategic plans. There is also a capacity gap, notably 0% perception of having financial resources to make change.
They have constructed a preliminary maturity model - going from awareness - to emerging integration - to institualised practice - to transformative practice. At the moment the libraries seem to be between awareness and emerging integration (from their survey). They are aiming to tests and develop the model and also develop an evaluation model.
Photo by Sheila Webber: Gulliver mural, Zagreb, September 2026