Document Type

Presentation/Lecture

Publication Date

2026

Description

In February 2025 the Eastern Michigan University Archives joined the JSTOR initiative Project Odyssey as a beta community partner. The intention of Project Odyssey was to: “leverage generative AI to assist libraries and archives in processing their digital collections. This solution addresses frequent bottlenecks in the creation of descriptive metadata—a vital component for preserving and making collections discoverable.”

Two members of the JSTOR team, Jennifer Saville and Lee Dotson, will join EMU Archivist Alexis Braun Marks to share the experience of working with the tool; how JSTOR involves community members in the creation, testing and evolution of tools; and the process of creating tools quickly but also thoughtfully.

This will be a session that is less about the technicalities of building a generative AI tool, and more about the importance of engaging with the user community to understand needs and impacts; the limitations of these tools, but also the possibilities.

It is incredible to think that in less than a year, Project Odyssey evolved from a beta research initiative into Seeklight—a JSTOR-supported tool now available to its broader user community. As AI capabilities continue to advance rapidly, this session invites a critical conversation about how stewards of the historical record can thoughtfully adopt these tools—balancing efficiency with ethics, innovation with care, and technological possibility with collective responsibility.

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