Reflections from Łódź – the good, the bad, and the dancefloor…

By Jesslyn Thay, Human Sciences Database Editor, CABI.

One element that always strikes me about EAHIL is the sense of community, where anyone who has a stake in health information – whether they are librarians, software wizards or freelance systematic reviewers, (not necessarily from Europe, either) – is welcome to gather, learn and share ideas.
I’ve had the privilege of attending EAHIL in 2023, 2024, and now 2025 in Łódź, Poland. Each hosting city has been fun, unique, and vibrant – and, fortunately, always sunny! I attend these conferences as an exhibitor on behalf of not-for-profit publisher CABI, with main aims networking, connecting and listening to the hot topics, concerns, and trends in medical librarianship – with a view to how CABI can respond to them.
This year, conversations were dominated by the use of AI – the omnipresent, omnipotent, but thankfully not yet omniscient force. A powerful tool which, when harnessed correctly, has the ability to transform for the greater good, if only it was easier to influence non-library staff and students how to use AI responsibly in their work.
EAHIL members are exposed daily to the misuse and misunderstandings around AI, and the 2025 conference in Łódź allowed experts to share their experiences of the AI in the library sphere: the good, the bad and sometimes the downright ugly.
Focusing on the good of AI, I fortunately had the chance to attend a few workshops on search translations, increasing use of AI tools for syntax, and using software to aid in the creation of searches to retrieve all the relevant terms (hello Medsyntax and REMI 2.0!). These developments are exciting and will have the ability to save countless manhours.
The bad and the ugly I’ll summarise together. We know that AI has an ability ‘to hallucinate’ and key fact checking by the user is imperative. But a standout workshop was “How Paper Mills and Predatory Journals Flood the Scientific Record—and What Medical Research Libraries Can Do” by Jasmin Schmitz.
Part of the workshop was an engaging discussion around how AI tools are being implemented in business for the creation of completely fictional data, papers and sometimes whole issues of journals! This type of ‘fake science’ has terrible consequences, with undermining trust in real evidence and misinformation potentially endangering lives. In my role as a database editor, predatory journals are an issue I take very seriously as I’m kind of a ‘gatekeeper’ to CABI Global Health.
I always find the EAHIL workshops and conferences to be an incredibly informative and engaging environment. It’s a pleasure to reconnect with many familiar faces yet equally pleasing to meet new people and build fresh professional connections, even if it is over a rather sweaty dancefloor!