Month: July 2025

Traditional notions of reference practices and knowledge acquisition in libraries are now upended by the Internet and evolving technologies. The lofty idealized interactions––receiving an articulated information need from a patron, using physical and digital libraries resources to locate high-quality material that most effectively addresses the need, resulting in a satisfied patron equipped with new knowledge––are complicated by the freedom of online searching offered to people by sites like Google, coupled with the increasing presence of AI as a retrieval tool and an information ‘source.’ This has led to anxiety in many libraries about how to deliver meaningful service to users. 

Ten years ago, Brian Kenney noted an interesting trend: “even as traditional reference transactions continue to decline, the use of our building is surging, increasing about 20% each year” (2015). This remains true, as I write this from a table at the public library, where patrons surround me watching videos on computers, looking for books on the shelves, writing notes on paper, chatting with friends, and eating [gasp] lunch with their families. There may not be a queue for research questions at the librarian’s desk, but the building is full of people who deeply value the space. This leads us, as information professionals, to reflect upon what our users want from us and how we can proactively meet their needs, desires, and dreams.

As I sat down at this table, two people at the table next to me were gathering their things. They were different ages, I would guess one of them was a young adult and the other was about 40 years old. They were chatting and packing up what looked like the parts of a PC computer that they were in the process of building themselves. I figured they were friends, relatives, or somehow acquaintances. When they were leaving, passing by my table, I heard them within earshot exchanging names and “it’s nice to meet you.” Two different patrons of two different generations, connected by a common project inside the library. 

This is how community members are organically using library spaces, and it is imperative that librarians offer renewed support for such prospects. In essence, patrons “want help doing things, rather than [just] finding things” (Kenney, 2015). Rather than waiting for isolated reference request transactions where librarians are completing a majority of the task at hand, we can find ways to use our expertise to assist, educate, and empower our users’ abilities to pursue new learning experiences. 

How does this look different from a community center or a class at a local community college? Libraries are uniquely positioned to promote and facilitate informal learning and skill shares within comfortable, safe spaces backed by access to the tools required to follow a curiosity or navigate the changing world (Stephens, 2025). Many of these needs, desires, and dreams involve proficiency in technology. As opposed to holding out for the return of now-antiquated services, library staff can prepare for and shape the future value of their offerings. 

Willing staff who are wondering what this could look like, can look to the community for inspiration. Recently, the Hispanic Foundation of Silicon Valley partnered with a non-profit called Everyone On to provide parents from a local grade school with laptops and 4 weeks of computer skill training aimed at helping caretakers “engage in their children’s education by confidently navigating the digital world” (Hispanic Foundation of Silicon Valley, 2025). Workshops of a similar model could effectively be adapted into library programming, where users learn relevant skills that address an identified need or interest, in community. Library service in the future requires us to serve users by helping them serve themselves and one another. Connections are already happening, the future is now, and it can all happen inside the library. 

Reference
Hispanic Foundation of Silicon Valley [@hispanicfoundationsv]. (2025, July 25). Yesterday, HFSV welcomed a new group of parents at @alpha_public_schools José Hernández School, to our #DigitalLiteracy program [Photograph]. Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/p/DMeFiTIy7u2/

Kenney, B. (2015, September 11). Where reference fits in the modern library. Publishers Weekly. https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/libraries/article/68019-for-future-reference.html

Stephens, M. (2025). Hyperlinked library: Learning everywhere [Lecture video]. SJSU. https://sjsu-ischool.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=012f4ddc-7161-407c-b277-af34011b768c

 

Music has long served as a mode of storytelling across time, cultural, language, and composition. Music tells stories, and people tell stories about music. Before I ever worked in a library, I worked at a small vinyl record shop during college. I discovered a lot of music from browsing the bins on slow days, but even more so from customers who would come in. They would find a certain record, or hear the one I was playing, and launch into a story about how that album was made, where they were when it came out, how they secured a physical copy, and of course, memories of seeing a musician or band perform live. Music I have come to love that predate my birth takes on new meaning in the context of these stories from customers who experienced the cultural moments that shaped these records. Learning how much an album meant to them made it mean that much more to me, even if somewhat vicariously. 

It is common, or at least was for many years, for libraries to have CD and other media collections for borrowing or in-library usage. I recently walked through the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts branch located at Lincoln Center, which is known for its film & tape archive, but I was impressed by the size of the circulating CD collection shelved, where a quick browse led me to find several beloved albums. There sat so much physical media, full of discs, song lyric booklets, diverse album art and track listings. I returned to thinking about something I think about often as a librarian and as a music lover, which is the shift from ownership to access.

 Libraries are now less likely to own digital resources, but rather have licenses to access them. Patrons for the most part do not care about the model from which it comes, as long as they can get the information, media, or other content that they need as efficiently as possible. While vinyl sales continue to rise in popularity, a vast majority of people with connected devices access music through streaming services such as Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, and Pandora, as opposed to owning an album on tape, CD, vinyl, or purchased mp3s. For younger listeners, streaming has been the main listening format in their lifetimes. But much like our music tastes, how we listen to and share music does not have to be a linear evolution. 

I was born in the 1990s, and along with many of my peers, I have a deep interest in music from this time or earlier. I have learned a lot about artists, influences, trends, and history that surround musical moments in time thanks to stories from older individuals who were a part of these scenes and often documented them in some way. Much like the conversations I had while working in a record shop, there are ways we can continue to bridge generational gaps of interest and knowledge on subjects like music that bring community members together in dialogue. 

Reading this week about the Listening Lab at St. Petersburg College Library demonstrates how incorporating a physical music media collection of vinyl records allows students to experience music listening in an exciting new-old way (Mairn & Terrana, 2018). Giving users the opportunity to (gently) use a record player shows the care and patience required for the listening process. This experimentation, exploration, and play, are all ways of learning in the hyperlinked library. Music as storytelling presents a number of channels through which libraries can embrace a time-transcending media form powerful enough to captivate audiences of all ages. 

References
Mairn, C., & Terrana, J. (2022). A library’s Listening Lab. https://287.hyperlib.sjsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/MairnListeningLab.pdf

 

It would be challenging to discuss the future of libraries, education, and the social and economic functions of society without discussing artificial intelligence––particularly, generative AI. Many of us (this includes me) avoided it, denied it, and attempted to reject it as a “tectonic shift” in technology within our lifetimes (Russell, 2024). Now it appears it is here to stay. Reflecting on the mounting excitement for AI and its potential to revolutionize learning, I still hesitate to embrace it wholeheartedly.

Maybe due to the fact that my academic background is in English, and that I never had a heightened interest in computers until recent years, but I had not heard serious discussions about AI and machine learning until I began working at a school in 2022. We had a professional development session led by the tech department on AI, ala ChatGPT. From what I recall, this conversation was basically that it can be challenging, but not impossible, to figure out when a student uses ChatGPT to write an assignment––considered different than using it to assist with early stage planning and brainstorming––and that certain uses of it can save teachers and administrators time on cumbersome generalized tasks. With this in mind, I was impressed to see AI appear on the New Media Consortium Horizon Report 2017 Library Edition’s “Important Developments in Technology for Academic and Research Libraries” timeline in the 4 to 5 year adoption range. Right on cue, it has become a major focus and investment of nearly every future-oriented institution I can think of. 

Generative AI is a particularly glittery prospect for research purposes. With dominating models like ChatGPT Edu and Google Gemini for Education, alongside emerging tools like scite.ai, schools and libraries are being solicited to buy into these technologies for the sake of user skill-building and employability, deeper learning, and evidently, for these companies to make money. And these tools are getting better at all of these things rapidly. Back in 2023, Allison Papini took a look at where ChatGPT’s abilities could intersect with information literacy in alignment with the ACRL Framework. She found ChatGPT to lack authority, to be great for brainstorming and finding “keywords on a topic” (which can also be done by Google). She also points to the fact that there is free access to the tool because users’ data “is helping it continue to learn (…) [we] are contributing to ChatGPTs development by providing free labor.” Now with priced subscription models, ChatGPT and similar tools can make money and keep scraping data. We must pause and assess this as librarians with guiding principles and ethics: these companies are making massive gains, and we are getting…information delivered a little faster, and sometimes a little less accurate?

There has to be some value for institutions willing to integrate AI, and there are current uses that are very, very helpful. AI assisted metadata enrichment for catalog records means more searchable collections and AI research assistance can speak multiple languages and work with various literacy levels. The EDUCAUSE Horizon Report Teaching & Learning Edition for 2025 describes the trend of more “democratized” and “efficient” technology via AI as one that will empower students, stretch limited budgets, and offer equitable access opportunities to underserved communities. It can be a free tutor, a resume and career coach, and a translator, all in one.

But is this really the whole picture? AI assistive tools are improving, and getting more expensive to where only the institutions with the most money will be able to fund subscriptions without cutting money to other areas and employment positions. Students of various backgrounds might all have the ability to ask ChatGPT a question, but while some schools are teaching students how to craft effective prompts, others have students with no connected device at home. Lastly, the equity of AI feels like a particularly slippery slope when it comes to the environmental impact. 

The environmental detriment of generative AI deserves a scope larger than this final paragraph, however, as libraries consider their service responsibilities to their communities, we cannot forget that of environmental stewardship. The computation power required from model training, the amount of water used to cool hardware in data centers and the electricity used resulting in increased carbon dioxide emissions is astounding (Zewe, 2025). These data centers that are used to “train and run the deep learning models behind popular tools like ChatGPT and DALL-E” are cropping up faster, and have serious environmental consequences on their neighboring communities.

I can’t lie, I have used these very tools and find them to work wonderfully when I need help finding the perfect word for what I am trying to say, brainstorming ideas for reading programs at work, or editing an email to my landlord. My partner learned how to code an entire website of his own using ChatGPT. There are ways these tools can be extremely effective for helping their users pursue lifelong learning. What remains, is a question of how we approach them with ethical, environmental, and civic awareness. And that might be a hard prompt to generate. 

References
EDUCAUSE Horizon Report: Teaching and learning edition. (2025). EDUCAUSE. https://library.educause.edu/-/media/files/library/2025/5/2025hrteachinglearning.pdf

NMC Horizon Report: Library edition. (2017). The New Media Consortium. https://library.educause.edu/~/media/files/library/2017/12/2017nmchorizonreportlibraryEN.pdf

Papini, A. (2023, January 27). ChatGPT: A library perspective. Bryant University. https://library.bryant.edu/chatgpt-library-perspective

Russell, A. (2024, October 8). AI: A tectonic shift in human society. UC Davis. https://www.ucdavis.edu/news/ai-tectonic-shift-human-society

Zewe, A. (2025, January 17). Explained: Generative AI’s environmental impact. MIT News. https://news.mit.edu/2025/explained-generative-ai-environmental-impact-0117

 

Please follow this link to my Innovation Strategy & Roadmap presentation on Tech Teens for Older Adults at Queens Public Library

Myth busting
Most librarians today will cringe at the public assumption that libraries are simply places full of books staffed by people who have the cushy role of reading all day long. Those of us working in library spaces of any type––academic, school, and especially public––know this to be far from our day-to-day realities. Now and forever, providing unique and relevant services informed by community needs and interests will be the sustaining force behind multi-faceted libraries that are complex, adaptive, and globally-minded environments. 

Library service to vulnerable community members
The safety and well-being of immigrants and refugees in the United States are at risk, leaving many of our fellow community members feeling uncertain about their personal mobility. While city, state, and federal leaders miss the mark in protecting some of their most vulnerable residents, libraries have an opportunity to step in. New York City public libraries have offered immigrant services for a number of years, but with the influx of fear amongst non-citizens (and actually, a number of citizens too) here in New York and across the country, it is time to think even bigger. Having collection items and promotional materials like flyers and handouts in locally-spoken community languages is a necessary and accessible starting point, but libraries can go even further. We do not expect our patrons to come in only requesting books and desktop computers, we know they need more. For inspiration, we can look abroad and see two exemplars in Denmark and France. 

DOKK1
Highlighted by Professor Stephens in several lectures and readings, DOKK1 in Aarhus, Denmark, home to the Aarhus Public Library, “reenvisions the library-going experience” with a focus on human needs and more effective uses of space (Morehart, 2016). Areas are dedicated to performances, meetings, children’s activities, public gatherings and celebrations, relaxation, and much more. Thinking about inclusive uses of cutting edge technology, DOKK1 has a “Siri AI assistant system” that functions as an immigration service, where someone not from the EU can go and get help with things like obtaining a work permit (Aleksic, 2025). These kinds of provisions may not immediately come to mind when someone says, “library programs,” but they should! They are meaningful integrations that are possible in the hyperlinked library. 

Vaclav Havel Library
In Paris, France, the Vaclav Havel Library is a part of a social complex building reconstructed in the Halle Pajol. When the building was first completed, the inclusion of a library was identified amongst the community requests; upon the opening of the Vaclav Havel Library in 2013, it quickly became one of the building’s most popular spaces. Vaclav Havel Library serves one of the most economically disadvantaged neighborhoods in Paris that is home to large migrant and asylum seeker communities, and works to offer supportive programming beyond basic literacy and language materials. The space holds: “133 seats, power plugs, free, anonymous WiFi, (…) a recreation room complete with a collection of video games, table tennis and foosball [for] local teens with limited options to gather and spend their free time” (Lauersen, 2020). The anonymous WiFi is worth noting as the library opposed requests from police and the city to require ID verification for Internet use. The popularity and positive reception of Vaclav Havel Library proves how thoughtful, nuanced service to communities brings users in and encourages them to stay a while.

References
Aleksic, D. (2025, May 27). A automaton librarian and a robot that drives away seagulls–Meet DOKK1, or how the Danes see sustainable and democratic public space. Ekapija. https://www.ekapija.com/en/news/5183296/an-automaton-librarian-and-a-robot-that-drives-away-seagulls-meet-dokk1

Lauersen, C. (2020, March 3). Václav Havel library in Paris-La Chapelle: A gift for everyone. Library Planet. https://libraryplanet.net/2020/03/03/vaclav-havel-library-in-paris-la-chapelle-a-gift-for-everyone/

Morehart, P. (2016, August 17). Moving beyond the “third place.” American Libraries Magazine. https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/blogs/the-scoop/library-design-moving-beyond-third-place