In the 2026 EDUCAUSE Horizon Report: Teaching and Learning Edition video, the statement was made that, “We’re not deciding anymore whether AI is going to shape our environment. That’s the accepted reality.” As a subject librarian in an academic library, as a student, but also just as a person in today’s world, I believe this statement to be true.
As it is the accepted reality, libraries cannot ignore it. What libraries can do, should do, and need to do is figure out how artificial intelligence shapes the library environment. While there are many ways it may be shaping this environment, including the ability to use generative AI to speed up technical tasks, I believe the most prevalent way it currently shapes the library environment is the effect it has on patrons’ lives.
To address this shaping factor, libraries must acknowledge it, regardless of librarians’ personal feelings. Alison Papini (2023) noted that a librarian’s role is to help people “access and use information as well as emerging tools and technologies, including AI.” The IFLA Trend Report 2024 demonstrates that generative AI changes how we create, share, and use information. So, to help people in today’s environment, librarians need to consider how to teach patrons about generative AI.
In my role as an academic subject librarian, I am doing this by incorporating a discussion of generative AI into the course integrated library sections I teach. During these sessions, I talk about generative AI in an information literacy context because that’s how students encounter it in their academic lives. Just as Papini does in her article, I emphasize to students that generative AI is not necessarily good or bad, but because it is a pervasive influence in their lives, I want them to understand it. To do this, I begin by asking students if they can tell me how a chatbot works, what hallucinations are, and what the ethical issues there are to consider. In the past year, only a handful have been able to provide answers. After I feel that they have a baseline understanding of the answers to these questions, we then talk about potential ways AI can be used as a tool in the research process and the need to verify information a chatbot may provide. In doing so, I share personal experiments I have conducted with AI as illustrations.
Barry Chudakov put it well: “Our tools and technologies are now more sophisticated, and their influence in our lives is now too pervasive to adopt a use-it-and-ignore-it approach.” (Anderson et. al., 2021) This idea should be reflected in how libraries interact with generative AI (and other emerging technologies). A key approach is beginning with patron education.
References
Anderson, J., Rainie, L., & Vogels, E. A. (2021, February 18). Hopes about life in 2025. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2021/02/18/hopes-about-life-in-2025/
EDUCAUSE. (2026, May 15). The 2026 EDUCAUSE Horizon Report: Teaching and Learning Edition [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8z1yTECbmY
Dezuanni, M., Osman, K., Burton, A., & Heck, E. (2025, January 30). IFLA trend report 2024: Facing the future of information with confidence (Phase 2, rev. ed.). International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions; Digital Media Research Centre. https://repository.ifla.org/items/ae4dfcc0-8def-4318-8c4c-7f0507d15609
Papini, A. (2023, January 27). ChatGPT: A library perspective. Krupp Library. https://library.bryant.edu/chatgpt-library-perspective