“Artificial intelligence in libraries: The emerging research agenda”

Cox, A. M., & Wang, X. (2025). Artificial intelligence in libraries: The emerging research agenda. IFLA Journal, 51(3), 567-569. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/03400352251365278

This piece serves as the editorial introduction to a full special issue of the IFLA Journal dedicated entirely to AI in libraries. Eighteen varied articles make up the issue, reflecting the wide-ranging impacts and uses of AI across library sectors and continents, representing a significant collective addition to both practical and scholarly knowledge about AI in the library world. The authors are upfront that the issue doesn’t wrap everything up neatly. Definitive answers aren’t really possible given how fast the technology is changing and how global the scope of libraries is, but what it does offer is a snapshot of where the conversation is right now. The issue brings together a lot of thought-provoking perspectives on current debates, and useful reference points for the library community. Essentially, it’s a call to libraries everywhere: AI isn’t coming, it’s already here, and the library world needs a shared research agenda to figure out how to deal with it responsibly and thoughtfully.

As someone who works in the library and has for the past five years, this article was especially interesting to read. I love libraries and everything they stand for, everything they do for communities. Seeing and reading about AI moving into that space is complicated. Libraries have always evolved; they’ve survived every major shift in how people access information, from card catalogs to the internet. But AI feels different. It’s faster, more disruptive, and it puts libraries in this uncomfortable position of having to choose: conform, change, or risk being forgotten. I think, regardless of my personal feelings about AI, that AI is not going anywhere anytime soon. It is important that we frame AI not as a replacement for librarians but as a tool that, when done right, can actually deepen what libraries already do best, which is connecting people with information in meaningful ways. I hope that this way of “buddying-up” with AI will save libraries from being erased.