New Voices RGU Student Series 2026 – Laura McCormack
Category: RGU Student Series 2026
In the 2026 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.
Based in Ireland, Laura McCormack is a part-time student and Library Assistant who brings a creative influence to her job through a background in photography and visual merchandising. In her free time, she is an avid reader, animal lover and online gamer.
AI in Everyday Life: How Public Libraries Can Support their Patrons in the Era of GenAI
I was recently watching a show called ‘Futureville Ireland’ on an Irish TV station called RTE One. The show gives a glimpse into the future, 25 years from now, to see how smart cities have developed in Ireland. One of the episodes talked about a company called ‘Halo Care’ who have developed technology-assisted homecare with an Artificial Intelligence (AI) Assistant who monitors the user and promotes independent living. It got me thinking about how AI is increasingly merging with our everyday lives. I talk to Alexa in my house; my day-to-day Google searches now give AI-enhanced offerings, and we carry devices in our pockets that provide instant access to Generative AI(GenAI) tools. Yet, in the public libraries where I work, a large majority of the patrons I meet have never used GenAI, or they have used it indirectly without even realising.
To design effective educational resources for our patrons, we must begin by educating ourselves. In a webinar from Choice Media Channel (2024), they observed that librarians need to have a firm grounding in AI literacy to guide their patrons in the responsible use of AI, they also observed that digital literacy is a key component in AI literacy, as users must have basic technology skills in order to interact with AI. De Brasdefer (2025) argues that empowering library staff in AI literacy while leveraging their existing expertise will bring communities closer to closing the digital divide.
I feel we have a responsibility as information professionals to equip ourselves with sufficient knowledge to empower our communities. Librarians looking to enhance their AI literacy skills are supported by organisations such as OCLC’s WebJunction, CILIP and CeADAR, Ireland’s centre for AI, just to name a few. These organisations offer free training courses, webinars and resources to support information professionals.
Cox and Suvodeep (2024) argue that citizen literacies must include data and AI literacy as well. It is essential that any training resource results in users gaining a basic understanding of AI-related terms and GenAI tools, so they can identify when they may be seeing or using AI without being aware of it and interact with GenAI with confidence.
What matters is not just the use of GenAI tools but the ability to integrate the benefits into work and life (Chee, Ahn and Lee, 2020), so public library users from every educational background, age range and technical skill must be accounted for. De Brasdefer (2025) reported that library users aged 60+ felt that AI training resources suited to their needs were lacking and that young adults had generally received training or instruction on the basics of AI or experimented with it themselves but were sceptical about any ethical implications of using GenAI tools. This highlights the importance of designing AI literacy programmes with user diversity in mind.
So, what could an AI literacy program look like in a public library? For older adults and inexperienced users, programme sessions could focus on AI fundamentals such as practical applications for daily life and ways to recognize AI in common tools like Google or social media platforms. For young adults, interactive games or quizzes could address the ethical considerations of GenAI, especially the implications of using images of real people to create altered AI visuals, assist them in spotting AI-generated content and encourage discussions on the responsible use of generative AI in their studies. For job seekers and professionals, a workshop could highlight the practical ways that generative AI can be utilized in their job such as composing emails, structuring CVs, recording meeting minutes, and automating daily tasks.
Resistance to change is always a challenge when it comes to new technologies, and everyone will have different levels of willingness to participate. I mean, I know people who hate supermarket self-checkouts because they remove the social aspect, whereas for me, I want to get in and out quickly, so it’s a bonus. Seilaly (2024) conducted a literature review that observed how populations of older people, people of low income or those with lower education levels may be dissatisfied with the implementation of GenAI tools or AI services in their libraries. With the rise of AI-generated phishing scams and media disinformation, it is understandable that users in this demographic would be particularly wary. Therefore, it is essential to incorporate considerations for resistance into training resources to build confidence and trust in the benefits of GenAI without sacrificing users’ appropriate caution.
The click here to access an annotated bibliography of additional sources relating to this topic.
References
Chee, H., Ahn, S. and Lee, J. (2025) ‘A Competency Framework for AI Literacy: Variations by Different Learner Groups and an Implied Learning Pathway’, British Journal of Educational Technology, 56(5), pp. 2146–2182. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/bjet.13556
Choice Media Channel (2024) Empowering Librarians with AI Literacy: A Framework for Navigating and Teaching AI. 11 December 2024. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKglzfo5hKw (Accessed: 19 November 2025) Cox, A.M. and Suvodeep, M. (2024)
‘Defining artificial intelligence for librarians’, Journal of Librarianship and Information Science., 56(2), pp. 330–340. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/09610006221142029 De Brasdefer, M. (2025)
Libraries at the Frontline of Equitable AI Literacy. International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions. Available at: https://repository.ifla.org/handle/20.500.14598/6878 (Accessed: 20 November 2025)
Seikaly, K. (2024) ‘”ChatGPT, How Do People Feel About You?”: Emotions, Artificial Intelligence, and Information Behavior’, Journal of Web Librarianship, 18(3), pp. 133–148. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/19322909.2024.2382689