IGeLU 2026 Conference and Developers Day, 19-22 October 2026

Conference

As AI assistants become students' default research interface, libraries must remain visible within these personal AI workspaces. The Model Context Protocol (MCP) — an emerging open standard that lets AI assistants call external services as structured tools — offers a natural integration path. We present an MCP-based integration that brings NYCU Library services into each student's own AI environment as personalized, structured tools. Authenticated students can access patron services via Alma (loans, holds, and purchase recommendations), catalog discovery via Primo, academic paper search with citation-aware exploration, and journal browsing with subscription tracking. Results are cached and chained across tools for multi-step workflows, and each tool returns structured UI widgets preserving the library's visual presence inside the student's AI workspace. We plan to open-source our integration layer and share reusable patterns for libraries within the Ex Libris ecosystem.

IGeLU 2026 theme: "Pearls of Technology: Think deeply, explore widely"
Development / Initiative
Practical Applications
Strategy

Alma
Content / CDI
Primo