Will AI kill libraries?

Academic circles are abuzz these days with conversations about how artificial intelligence, specifically large language generative models such as ChatGPT, will affect teaching, learning, and research. As librarians and educators around the world consider optimal ways to integrate AI, recent reports point to conflicting ideologies on the best approach. Within libraries, we are exploring how to leverage AI to do what librarians have done so well for centuries: provide inquiring minds with access to information. Outside, people wonder: Will AI mark the death of libraries as we know them?

With the appearance of every new technology, there is a fear that it will displace or destroy what has come before it. We saw it in the transition from spoken to written culture thousands of years ago. We saw it again in the transition from manuscript to print brought about by the printing press. We have seen it in our time with the emergence of digital tools and networks that facilitate rapid access to information. It is human nature to fear the unknown, and there is a lot we don’t yet know about AI.

In an era where instantaneous access to everything has become the norm, libraries have worked hard to develop user-centric services that connect patrons with the vast intellectual resources found in libraries and archives around the world. The time-honored trust that citizens—both within the academy and beyond—have placed in libraries to be purveyors and stewards of the historical record has resulted in the creation of an extraordinary global network of local, regional, national, and international repositories. None of this could have been achieved without technology’s helping hand.

Librarians are always looking for new ways to acquire, organize, describe, serve, and preserve information, and, these days, we are especially keen to know how AI might assist us with this essential work. My sense is even in these relatively early days of AI, librarians have high hopes for harnessing its power. But AI, as we are coming to understand it, is much more than a tool; it is an ecosystem.

With the development of the algorithms underlying Amazon, Google, and social media platforms, we have seen the emergence of powerful systems designed to autonomously gather, process, and direct information to users based on a variety of factors. Just think of how advertisements are pushed to us based on our search preferences and our “likes” on social media. As these AI-powered networks become smarter and smarter from harvesting personal user data and feeding upon openly accessible information (think all that is on the open web), I wonder if we will see the emergence of a smart ecosystem that serves to benefit all equitably or only those motivated by profit-seeking. Time will tell, but I think we will see some of both.

One of the more pressing issues for libraries is the effect AI may have on the academic enterprise as we have come to know it. In recent months, a collaboration led by the Coalition for Networked Information and the Association of Research Libraries has attempted to craft possible scenarios for information professionals to consider as they prepare themselves for an uncertain future. I believe that this planning is critical to encourage libraries to think outside the box and into the future, which can be culturally challenging for a field that has traditionally been somewhat averse to change.

Librarians have worked diligently for decades to create curated resources that are open and accessible to scholars. Open-access journals and open education resources have emerged that level the learning playing field. In a future where AI agents scrape the corpus of curated, vetted, trustworthy, scholarly material and improvise at will without regard for the bibliographic standards fundamental to scholarship and to assure a chain of custody for knowledge through the ages, what effect will this have on scholarly integrity? On history? On truth-seeking? I think that these are tremendously important questions for librarians to consider not only from an economic perspective but also from a moral one.

As librarians explore and use AI, we must bring with us what the technology can never have: curiosity and morality. It is the librarian’s duty to ask good questions and pursue them with an open mind, to maintain integrity throughout inquiry, to select and cite high-quality sources, and to develop rational arguments and communicate them in a meaningful way. The good news is that if you are overwhelmed navigating the burgeoning information universe, your local librarians are here to help.

The next big thing is here. As libraries have done brilliantly for centuries with the appearance of every new technology, I believe librarians will embrace this AI moment with confidence while staying true to the timeless values we hold dear—the promotion of knowledge through exploration, discovery, and creation.