FIAT/IFTA World Conference 2025

Today, we have access to more data than ever before, and in the last few years, it has become widely possible to create and share artificial and potentially misleading information. Traditionally, professionals like librarians, documentalists, archivists, and information specialists helped the public access knowledge through methods like indexing and searching. Now that everyone can access, create and share data easily on their own, some might wonder if these roles are still important.

However, we argue that the sheer amount of data available to the public makes effective processing and retrieval of information more essential than ever. Similarly, the rise of artificial information calls for dedicated efforts to ensure that reliable and accurate sources of information are available to the public. In this context, documentalists can play a key role by learning new skills and adapting their existing expertise to new challenges.

This poster examines the changing skill sets that documentalists need to address these challenges, highlighting the importance of data literacy, ensuring transparency, and tracking the sources of information. We share case studies from our organization that illustrate various projects aimed at enhancing users’ access to information in this complex landscape. We discuss how improving data literacy can lead to more efficient internal processes and how teams work to enhance metadata to make information more readily usable for the public. Finally, we highlight the continued importance of traditional skills in the work of documentalists to ensure that the public have access to trustworthy sources of information in the future.