AI AI Oh!

Most of the articles I’ve read recently seem to imply that libraries are missing important opportunities with regard to AI. I know such was the case with my own library where there were maybe two of us doing anything with it. With limited staffing, reduced budgets, attention to maintaining representation in our collections, and a floundering sense of identity, forward motion can be a daunting task for any institution and the resulting paralysis can have a frightful outcome for information-based services. The results can range from students fearing AI and never engaging with it, to those who want to rely on it to support their growing disinclination to mental exertion.

While large research universities like Stanford have led the development and implementation of these new technologies, smaller teaching colleges and universities – and their libraries – are trying to figure things out. Things like

• what expectations should be placed upon students and faculty?
• how do we move forward with consideration of the environment?
• in what meaningful ways can AI be embedded into curricular areas to enhance the skills of future researchers, employees, and citizens?
• what tools can we afford that will play nice with our existing tech infrastructure?
• how do we redefine academic misconduct?

Todd Carpenter has developed a much more rigorous thought process in his work with Coalition for Networked Information (CNI).

Librarians don’t have to answer all these questions immediately but they can do things like looking at meaningful ways to implement AI to reduce their workflow. Using tech tools in daily practices is the best way to learn about them and to eventually be able to teach them.

I know there are many I’ve lost in this piece who have absolutely no interest in large language models (LLMs), or any type of AI. I admit that the technology frightens me. It’s expanding in the USA as if it is a nascent business that needs no regulation to let it blossom rather than as a technology that erodes livelihoods and both intellectual freedom and property rights. I see the data centers that are used to process AI existing as massive forces that destroy our natural resources at a pace never seen before, and being done at the expense of the 99%. I think the job market is transforming quicker than education and training programs can evolve, resulting in a massive loss of jobs. And, I see artistic creators losing income, their professional identity, and the rights to content that previously had legal and ethical protections around the globe.

But

As educators and information leaders, I think librarians have the responsibility to provide information and skill development so that our students and community members can make informed choices about using AI. I felt an obligation to help my students be competitive in the job market. A report from the NISO Open Discovery Initiative Standing Committee mentions several compelling consequences resulting from libraries having no AI policies that include trust erosion, deeper divisions between well-funded and resource poor institutions, and choices that ignore environmental degradation.

It seems that much of what LLMs do could replace the human need to analyze, evaluate, and synthesize information – upper-level thinking skills. I think that while machines can process data at a quicker rate, humans will have to maintain the responsibility to verify the data that goes into the machines along with their output. Once, I used a predictive AI service to write a business letter for me. It seemed like a good idea because it generated thoughts I hadn’t considered, but I spent as much time fixing the letter as I would have used in constructing my own. The unchecked letter was in no condition to send to anyone. I needed a skill set to realize this.

Our information literacy sessions have to shift to incorporate AI literacy, essential abilities that people need to live, learn and work in our digital world through AI-driven technologies (source). UNESCO has built an AI competency framework around four key elements that result in a work force that uses AI to support human decision making and intellectual development.

• A human-centered mindset: Encouraging students to understand and assert their agency in relation to AI.
• Ethics of AI: Teaching responsible use, ethics-by-design and safe practices.
• AI techniques and applications: Providing foundational AI knowledge and skills.
• AI system design: Fostering problem-solving, creativity and design thinking.

I’ve long been perplexed by institutions of knowledge that are reactors rather than innovators. Granted, we can’t jump on every trend, but friends I don’t think AI is a trend, and I don’t think diversity and social justice are either, but that’s a different post.

If you haven’t started yet, your library is losing its position as an information innovator. If all individual librarians can do is baby steps, that has to be better than nothing. The AI framework can be implemented in rigorous ways that require students to consider when or if they want to engage with the technology, whether they want to support certain candidates or policies in their local elections, and how to detect when they are being influenced by artificially generated information.

In my library practice, I incorporated it into my library instructions sessions as well as using it to develop slides for presentations, generate lists of trivia for a colleague, and proofreading my writing. During instruction sessions, I would stress with students and faculty that we are all learning this technology together and that means we need to start sharing how we’re using it and what works. We have to collectively work through the gray areas. Librarians have got to be part of those discussions if we want to be seen as the information experts we claim to be.  I want users to view the library as campus’s leading information and research service and I don’t present myself as a know it all expert. LOL I may have that tone here but, trust me when I tell you I’m well aware of the fact that I’m continually learning and unlearning.

Back in 2006, I began blogging to learn a new technology. Now, in 2025 here I go with AI. For updates on tools and services, I subscribe to Zain Kahn’s Superhuman AI Newletter. Library 2.0 is a nice spot for discussions and online workshops specifically for libraries. What groups or site are you using?

Be well and do good!

Filed under: Libraries & Schools, Uncategorized