Operating the franchise: vendor consolidation, algorithmic mediation, and the remaking of academic librarians as platform administrators for digital capitalism
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.47989/ir31262945Abstract
Introduction. This paper examines how artificial intelligence implementation and vendor consolidation in academic libraries creates a franchise model where librarians operate vendor-controlled systems rather than exercising professional autonomy over information organization and access.
Method. Critical qualitative analysis synthesising empirical studies of AI accuracy in cataloguing, market concentration data, documented cases of content filtering, a revelatory case study of verification infrastructure failure, and theoretical frameworks from platform capitalism, the sociology of professions, and critical information science.
Analysis. Vendor monopolies (84% ARL member institutions market share at peak concentration), AI cataloguing failures (26% F1 accuracy for subject headings), and content filtering (blocking searches for Gaza War and Tulsa race massacre) create franchise conditions where librarians bear operational accountability for systems they neither control nor can modify.
Results. AI implementation serves vendor interests in labour cost reduction rather than improving information access, while consolidation creates platform monopolies extracting value from professional labour while eliminating the expertise that creates it.
Conclusions. Resistance requires collective organising, alternative infrastructure development, and recognition that current AI implementations conflict with core professional values. The framework extends platform capitalism theory to professional service contexts.
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