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<p class="MsoNormal">May be of interest.<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;color:black;mso-ligatures:standardcontextual">---</span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;color:black;mso-ligatures:standardcontextual">Janet Carleton | Digital Initiatives Coordinator | Digital Initiatives | Mahn Center for Archives and Special Collections, Preservation & Digital Initiatives |
OHIO University Libraries | Alden 333 | Athens, Ohio | 740.597.2527 | she/her | </span>
<span style="color:black;mso-ligatures:standardcontextual"><a href="mailto:carleton@ohio.edu"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;color:black">carleton@ohio.edu</span></a></span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;color:black;mso-ligatures:standardcontextual"> | Digital
Archives - <a href="https://media.library.ohio.edu/"><span style="color:black">https://media.library.ohio.edu</span></a> | Archives Finding Aids -
<a href="https://archivesspace.ohio.edu/"><span style="color:black">https://archivesspace.ohio.edu/</span></a>
</span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;color:black;mso-ligatures:standardcontextual"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">From:</span></b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"> CNI-ANNOUNCE -- News from the Coalition for Networked Information <CNI-ANNOUNCE@cni.org>
<b>On Behalf Of </b>Diane Goldenberg-Hart<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Wednesday, January 21, 2026 3:38 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> CNI-ANNOUNCE -- News from the Coalition for Networked Information <CNI-ANNOUNCE@cni.org><br>
<b>Subject:</b> [External] [CNI-ANNOUNCE] Dealing with AI Bots - COAR Website<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">The Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR) has just announced the new <a href="https://dealing-with-bots.coar-repositories.org/"><span style="text-decoration:none">Dealing with AI Bots w</span>ebsite</a> that provides a wealth
of information on bots and crawlers impacting the services and operations of open repositories, including mitigation strategies; see the announcement below for more information. This work follows a survey COAR conducted of its members in spring 2025 to better
understand the scope and scale of the problem; COAR Executive Director Kathleen Shearer provided a video report of the project for the July 2025 issue of CNI’s Pre-recorded Project Briefing Series, available here: <a href="https://www.cni.org/topics/ci/artificial-intelligence-bots-and-repositories-results-and-next-steps-from-coar-survey">Artificial
Intelligence Bots and Repositories—Results and Next Steps from COAR Survey. <o:p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black">My sincere thanks to Kathleen Shearer and all involved for this impactful contribution, and for granting me permission to share it with the CNI community.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black">-Diane Goldenberg-Hart, CNI<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">— — — <o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">I am very pleased to announce that the initial outcomes of our work on dealing with bots is now available in the form of <a href="https://dealing-with-bots.coar-repositories.org/">a website</a>.<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">The website provides the background context, conceptual model and a description of various mechanisms for mitigating the impact of bots (including their efficacy). It also provides a mechanism for you to contribute your experiences with
various measures. <o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">It is important to note that,<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">A major conclusion from this work is that <strong><span style="font-family:"Aptos",sans-serif">there is no “silver bullet” solution</span></strong> to this problem. It is clear that the nature of traffic on the Web has changed, and it seems
certain that repositories will continue to deal with a range of bots, both welcome and unwelcome, and that the behaviour of such bots will in many cases be problematic. Repositories will need to walk a fine line between protecting their operations from being
overwhelmed by traffic from unscrupulous actors, and maintaining their core mission of providing open access to legitimate users and machines.<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">This doesn’t represent the end of COAR’s work in this area. We have several AI-related work that we will be pursing in the future as outlined on our new <a href="https://coar-repositories.org/what-we-do/ai-and-repositories/">“AI and Repositories"
webpage</a><o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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Advance COAR's conceptual model using AI to support discovery of multilingual scholarly research outputs<o:p></o:p></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1">
Maintain a watching brief on the impact of AI bots on repositories and open science<o:p></o:p></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1">
Ensure the integrity of the knowledge commons in an AI-mediated world<o:p></o:p></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1">
Develop recommended practices for repositories to better support machine access<o:p></o:p></li></ul>
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<p class="MsoNormal">I want to extend my <b>big thanks</b> to the members of the <b>
Dealing with Bots Task Group</b> and <b>especially to Paul Walk</b>, who did the majority of the heavy lifting to produce this resource.<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Here is the link to the <a href="https://dealing-with-bots.coar-repositories.org/">Dealing with AI Bots website</a>.<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">If you have any questions or comments, please get in touch with me.<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Best, Kathleen<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Kathleen Shearer<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Executive Director, COAR<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="mailto:kathleen.shearer@coar-repositories.org">kathleen.shearer@coar-repositories.org</a><o:p></o:p></p>
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