New Voices RGU Student Series 2026 – Melina Edwards

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.

Melina Edwards is currently pursuing an MSc in Library and Information Studies at Robert Gordon University and volunteers at Glasgow Women’s Library, having previously studied History at the University of Glasgow. Her professional interests lie in special collections and rare books, alongside a strong commitment to access to library services and their role in supporting communities. She is passionate about books and libraries, and can always find time for a good book.

AI Literacy in Universities: How Librarians Can Guide Ethical and Critical Use

Introduction

Once, AI was a hypothetical future found only in science fiction. Today, GenAI is no longer a hypothetical future, but a real technology weaving itself into the fabric of society. It’s becoming ingrained in the lives of students, staff, and researchers. Tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity are now being used more frequently by university staff and students. As information professionals, our job is to assist users in this new technological terrain, guiding them on how to ethically & critically use and navigate these new tools.

Building AI Literacy: The New Core Skill

AI literacy is rapidly becoming as essential as traditional information literacy. This involves the skills, knowledge, and ethical awareness needed to properly understand, evaluate, and responsibly use GenAI. (Chigwada, 2025). In accordance with IFLA’s Literacy Framework users must understand how algorithms shape our lives (IFLA, 2017). Therefore, to use AI properly, one must understand how it works.

GenAI uses complex machine learning models to recognize patterns within large quantities of data. Essentially, the model mimics the brain’s processes to provide outcomes (Boateng, 2025). However, the critical term here is ‘mimics’. While AI tools can be a helpful way to spark ideas and summarize topics, it can’t replace a person’s creativity. Due to its programming, AI will often ‘hallucinate’ or make-up responses to produce often untrue answers, requiring critical analysis of AI responses.

Ethical awareness is a key part of AI literacy. Researchers studying AI report concerns around misinformation (Khan et al., 2023), bias (Wang et al., 2025), and threats to academic integrity (Batista et al., 2024). Therefore, in AI literacy courses an information specialist’s role is to teach aspects like critically assessing AI output, verifying with credible sources, the importance of cultural or specialised nuances, and using AI appropriately.

Collaboration and Communication: The Foundation of Effective Training

Whether integrating AI tools to services (Boateng, 2025), writing institutional policy (Batista, 2024), or creating AI literacy courses (Chigwada, 2024), research shows communication and collaboration are instrumental in this new era, and librarians are instrumental to teaching it. Librarians have an enriched connection to their community, and academic librarians are no different. It is critical that they bolster these skills to assist in creating relevant policies and enriched courses to grapple with AI integration.

Creating AI literacy courses is a great example of reflecting the benefits of collaboration and communication. Explored thoroughly by Josiline Chigwada’s work, these courses rely entirely on communication from the institution’s population. (Chigwada, 2024). Feedback is essential to assess the needs of users and course effectiveness. This feedback loop is key to creating a truly effective AI literacy course that develops the population’s needs.

Upskilling Librarians: Preparing the People Who Will Teach

To properly assist users in this new era, librarians must feel comfortable with AI themselves. According to researchers, many librarians report feeling unconfident in their AI understanding and skills. (Bongiovanni, E. et al., (2024) To properly engage with other institutional departments and create AI literacy courses, librarians must develop their own skills. A great starting point is the concepts from the B-Wheel framework, specifically focusing on developing technical, conceptual, and ethical skills (Kautonen, et al., 2024).

Contrastingly, researchers raise concerns over equity as many librarians lack resources to upskill and risk falling behind. (Cox, 2023). Nevertheless, following CILIP’s Ethical Framework (CILIP, 2018) the duty of librarians is to act as information keepers who inform users on how to navigate the research world. Therefore, we must persevere and find ways to develop skills to support our users.

What should a training resource include

Drawing on current research and library experience, an effective training resource should include:

• GenAI basics: Providing a clear explanation as to what generative AI is, and how it works on a basic level will provide clarity on the potential pitfalls of its usage. This assists users to develop a realistic idea of what AI tools can and can’t do.
• Ethical use: Guidance and support on using AI responsibly in academic contexts, with specific references to the known professional and academic standards. For example, CILIP’s Ethical Framework emphasizes integrity, respect for intellectual property, and responsible use of information (CILIP, 2018).
• Critical evaluation: Provide support for developing critical analysis, and giving methods for recognizing hallucinations, checking AI outputs against credible sources, and understanding where AI may lack cultural and/or disciplinary nuance.
• Hands-on practice: Provide opportunities for guided experimentation, specifically for prompt design and evaluation. This allows users to experience tools in a reflective and critical way.

Conclusion

Academic librarians play a critical role in the developing world of AI. Through cross-departmental collaboration, skill development, and communication with students. Librarians can support the ethical, thoughtful, and confident integration of AI tools to universities.

References:

Below is a detailed bibliography with interesting resources has been compiled for interested readers, you can click here to access.

Batista, J., Mesquita, A. and Carnaz, G. (2024) ‘Generative AI and higher education: trends, challenges, and future directions from a systematic literature review. Information, 15(11), 676. Available At: doi:10.3390/info15110676.

Boateng, Frank, (2025) ‘The transformative potential of generative AI in academic library access services: Opportunities and challenges’, Information Services and Use, 45(1–2), pp. 140–147. Available At: doi: 10.1177/18758789251332800.

Bongiovanni, E. et al. (2024) ‘Intersections of AI Literacy & Information Literacy’. 6 May. Available at: https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/P5ACU (Accessed: 20 November 2025).

Chigwada, J. (2024) ‘A proposed framework for a digital literacy course for artificial intelligence in academic libraries’, South African Journal of Libraries and Information Science, 90(2), pp. 1–8. Available At: doi:10.7553/90‑2‑2388.

CILIP (2018) Ethical Framework for the Information Professions. Available at: https://www.cilip.org.uk/page/ethics (Accessed: 24 November 2025).

Cox, A. (2023) ‘How artificial intelligence might change academic library work: Applying the competencies literature and the theory of the professions’, Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 74(3), pp. 367–380. Available at: doi:10.1002/asi.24635.

Craig, J. (2018) View of floating open book from stacked books in library [Photograph]. Available at: https://unsplash.com/photos/view-of-floating-open-book-from-stacked-books-in-library-HH4WBGNyltc (Accessed: 9 February 2026).

IFLA (2017) IFLA Statement on Digital Literacy. Available at: https://www.ifla.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/assets/faife/statements/ifla_digital_literacy_statement.pdf (Accessed: 24 November 2025).

Kautonen, H. and Gasparini, A.A. (2024), ‘B-Wheel – Building AI competences in academic libraries’, The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 50(4), p.N.PAG. Available at: doi:10.1016/j.acalib.2024.102886.

Khan, R. et al. (2024) ‘Impact of conversational and generative AI systems on libraries: A use case large language model (LLM)’, Science & Technology Libraries, 43(4), pp. 319–333. Available at: doi:10.1080/0194262X.2023.2254814.

Wang, B., Zhang, C., Khamo and Ye, S. (2025) ‘Facing the era of generative artificial intelligence: Strategies of information and digital literacy in Chinese studies’, IFLA Journal, 51(3), pp. 787–802. Available at: doi:10.1177/03400352241291905.

Widlund, E, (2019) Photo of brown wooden bookshelf [Photograph]. Available at: https://unsplash.com/photos/photo-of-brown-wooden-bookshelf-xrbbXIXAWY0 (Accessed: 9 February 2026).