New Voices RGU Student Series 2025 – Colbe Moe

Category: Blog, RGU Student Series 2025

In the 2025 New Voices Student Series, the CILIPS Students & New Professionals Community will be sharing the views of Robert Gordon University students from the MSc in Information and Library Studies.

With special thanks to Dr Konstantina Martzoukou, Teaching Excellence Fellow and Associate Professor, for organising these thought-provoking contributions.

Today’s blog contributor is Colbe Moe. Colbe is a student returning to education after a career in hospitality, hoping to join the public librarian field within my home country the United States or abroad. Colbe has returned to education due to a passion for literacy advocacy and the belief that librarians are one of the first lines of defense against class injustice.

Generative AI and Libraries

Generative AI has the potential to broaden accessibility to information by leaps and bounds. But current generations are quite simply a threat. Without widespread changes, they should not be adopted into our library systems for the good of the public.

Understanding how Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) works is the first step in effective utilization. It allows users to use natural, conversational language patterns to communicate with AI interfaces to create new data. The formation of GenAI is built upon a century of discovery. The formation of GenAI is built upon a century of discovery, from the 1906 proposal of Markov Chains creating the basis of autocomplete, to the invention of transformer architecture in 2017 by Google, which became the foundation of modern AI large language models (LLM) released between 2022-2023. Instead of text predictions based upon a few letters or words, these LLMs utilize billions of datasets in their training (Zewe, 2023). As Zewe (2023) explains, “In natural language processing, a transformer encodes each word in a corpus of text as a token and then generates an attention map, which captures each token’s relationships with all other tokens. This attention map helps the transformer understand context when it generates new text… As long as your data can be converted into this standard, token format, then in theory, you could apply these methods to generate new data that look similar.”

GenAI has the potential to revolutionize how we search for information. In a public library setting, it can customize recommended readings lists to the individual (Adebowale, 2023). It can increase accessibility by creating audio transcripts and perform translation services, reduce the daily workload of librarians with automatic metadata creation, curation recommendations, and inventory management support (Inamdar, 2023). GenAI assistants are a helper that never gets tired, impatient, or frustrated, they can create infinite new practise sessions to engage learners at any level.

However, these tools have the potential to deepen the digital divide. (Enis, 2024). They are known to return results of misinformation and bias (Copilot, 2024). There are lawsuits and claims of intellectual property theft surrounding their creation and usage (Bridges, McElroy, Welhouse., 2024).

The emergence of GenAI tools fall within the already-established role of librarians as advocates for knowledge acquisition and literacy. Librarians should aim to “raise awareness among users, inform them about the opportunities and threats of artificial intelligence, and educate them on the ethical and responsible use of these tools” (Garnier, 2024). Librarians can utilize already-established skill sets including critical analysis, verification of sources, and the human aspect of communicating directly with patrons to discover what their information needs are and how the library can help achieve them. New or altered skills need to be established, for example, the change from keywords and Boolean Logic search parameters to the creation of clear, effective prompts utilizing context, desired output structure, and detailed yet linguistically simple instructions (Seales, 2024). All while avoiding any language that can create a confirmation bias feedback loop (Bubinger, Dinneen, 2024). Librarians must keep abreast of local, national, and international policies surrounding GenAI tools, and how that may affect their workplace and patrons (Lo, 2023).

By partnering with other libraries, universities, and communities, librarians can use their skills in information literacy and ethics, change management, and community networking to push for regulation, transparency, and equity from big tech.  “The companies promoting AI have an interest in urgency. Their profits and future growth depend on the widespread adoption of their tools. But their emergency is not our emergency” (Bridges, McElroy, Welhouse., 2024). As a collective these partnerships have the power to demand GenAI reform in upcoming generations, starting with the training data; after all, if the old saying of you are what you eat holds true, then we must stop feeding these GenAI models misinformation, stolen works, and bigotry.

References

Adebowale, J. A. (2023)., Artificial intelligence chatbots in academic libraries: The rise of ChatGPT. Library Hi Tech News, 40(3), 18-21. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1108/LHTN-01-2023-0007

Bridges, L. M., McElroy, K. and Welhouse, Z., (2024). Generative Artificial Intelligence: 8 Critical Questions for Libraries, Journal of Library Administration, 64(1), pp. 66–79. Available at: https://doi-org.ezproxy.rgu.ac.uk/10.1080/01930826.2024.2292484

Bubinger, H.; Dinneen JD., (2024),”What could go wrong?”: An evaluation of ethical foresight analysis as a tool to identify problems of AI in libraries. Journal of Academic Librarianship, Vol. 50, No. 5. Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0099133324001046.

Enis, M (2024) Next Gen AI: Libraries Work with ChatGPT and Other Emerging AI Tools | Library Journal. Available at: https://www.libraryjournal.com/story/next-gen-ai-libraries-work-with-chatgpt-and-other-emerging-tools.

Garnier, M.C. et al, (2024) The Pivotal Role of Libraries in Sustainable AI Development. The Canadian Journal of Information and Library Science. Available at: doi:10.5206/cjils-rcsib.v47i2.17699.

Inamdar, S. (2023)., Impact of artificial intelligence text generators (AITGs) on libraries. Library Hi Tech News, Vol. 40 No. 8, pp. 9-13. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1108/LHTN-03-2023-0048

Lo, L.S. (2023)., AI policies across the globe: Implications and recommendations for libraries. IFLA Journal-International Federation of Library Associations. Available at:
https://doi-org.ezproxy.rgu.ac.uk/10.1177/03400352231196172

Seales, D.L.I., ADVENTURES WITH AI in the School Library. (2024)., Computers in Libraries, 44(7), pp. 30–34. Available at: https://search-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.rgu.ac.uk/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,shib&db=llf&AN=179267110&scope=site

Zewe, A. (2023)., Explained: Generative AI | MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Available at: https://news.mit.edu/2023/explained-generative-ai-1109.