Recently, someone accused me of having a track record of “not using my own brain.” I must admit, that felt cutting and inaccurate as I’ve been using my own brain on this earth for 53 years now and continue to do so daily. The comment came from my admission that periodically I will tackle a task that would take hours with a boost from artificial intelligence (AI). You can surmise, from her comment, that this person is adamantly against the use of AI in any way, shape, or form.
The accusation got me thinking about the reasons that I every so often will turn to AI, the inherent dangers, the good parts, and why it can really drive a wedge between those who are proponents of this emerging technology and those who are adamantly against the use for any reason at any time. AI is testing the boundaries of our society and it often feels like there are no guardrails, and that begs the question, what is our role as a school librarian? How do we lead when there is not a clear road map or path?
I’ve seen a lot of back and forth in some of the social media groups, articles posted, strong opinions shared, and sometimes, it gets ugly. The conversation can be heated among librarians. I’ve witnessed that one first hand.
I’ll mention here that I am not advocating against or for the use of AI in this blog post, rather, I want to share my thoughts as they tangle and untangle around in my brain about our role as school librarians and AI and where that intersects with leadership.
Being a school librarian, as Spiderman would say, comes with “great responsibility.” In graduate school, we used to talk about the “many hats” that a school librarian wears. You know them: Teacher, Leader, Instructional Partner, Information Specialist, and Program Administrator. I ponder them quite often in my work and I think that three of them in particular stand out to me when it comes to navigating this world of AI, chat bots, and changing technology: teacher, leader, information specialist.
Teacher (Educator)
The role of educator and school librarian encompasses more than just teaching students daily. It also means educating our staff and faculty, the school community, administrators, and ourselves. If we refuse to even explore what AI is and what it can do, how can we be effective educators of both the good and the horrible that come with AI?
It feels like the answer is that we must understand it ourselves to effectively teach about it. As an educator, it is our responsibility to provide classroom educators, administrators, students, and the entire school community with an overview of what AI is, what it can do, and be able to provide answers to their questions about AI. Personally, I feel like this also includes sharing how AI is gobbling up energy, electricity, water, and affecting communities. Being able to speak about it is so important.
Leader
As a school librarian we are leaders in our buildings. Even though we are all busy, taking the time to learn and share new technologies while also communicating the bigger picture demonstrates leadership. Students are using AI in ways that two or three years ago didn’t even exist – do they really understand the ramifications of what they are doing? We need to lead in instructing what is appropriate, what is not, and again, it comes down to teaching about AI – not put our heads in the sand even though it may feel daunting at times.
I think back to the pandemic when we all pivoted to online instruction and had this amazing opportunity to change the way we “did school” when we finally came back to in person learning. Very little changed because we ignored the possibilities. I think that the same is true with AI – we need to lead and be vocal about the good, bad, and ugly parts of AI.
Five years from now, we will have missed the opportunity that we have today to be leaders when it comes to understanding and assisting in the creation of AI policies and procedures for schools. AI is out there, the kids are using it – we need to continue to learn and lead. Half the states have some policy guidance already on the use of AI in education. You can see if your state has any guidance by checking the AI for Education site.
Information Specialist
This is the one that hits home the most for me. We’re the ones who took a lot of graduate classes to become school librarians – we focused on research, information literacy, technology, digital citizenship, and understanding how to find and teach others to find information.
What does AI do? It finds information.
Sometimes it finds it incorrectly (hallucinates), it makes up what it thinks we want to hear, and it only can rely on what’s been put into the system. Sometimes that information is ethically added to the system, sometimes the copyright violations are blatant when it comes to AI’s response.
This is where we come in as an information specialist.
We need to market, advertise, shout it from the rooftops that school librarians are specialists when it comes to finding, using, and evaluating information. We are the ones who educate our students in information literacy and teach them to use a research process to get the information they need. If we don’t stay ahead of the curve, market our services, advertise what we can do, why would anyone need us if they can just ask ChatGPT?
It circles right back around to teaching and leading – we need to teach about AI, understand AI, and lead with thoughtfulness when it comes to AI so that our school communities can thrive.
Did she or didn’t she?
I bet you are wondering, “did she use AI to write this blog post?” Nope. I did use that rather disturbing accusation that was sitting in my head to come up with the topic, though. Oh, and I used the magic image (AI) generator in Canva for the header image. I think I could have done better on my own, but I wanted to use it once I generated it.
Some people are going to be all-in for the use of AI. Some people are going to be in the camp of never using AI. Our job as information specialists, leaders, and educators in the school library is to understand what AI is and how it works so that we can help our school community make decisions for themselves about how they feel about AI.
We need to guide. We need to lead inquiry. We need to give a pathway to others to come to conclusions that are thoughtful and steeped in evidence – after all, isn’t that what we do? We educate those in our community to think, create, share, and grow.
As with our students, we need to use our skills of teaching, leading, and exploring to decide what is right for ourselves when it comes to AI personally and professionally. 
Reading List (just some things I’ve explored recently)
Cooper, R. (2024, September 27). Water is not the problem with artificial intelligence. The American Prospect. Retrieved from https://prospect.org/environment/2024-09-27-water-not-the-problem-artificial-intelligence/
Karma, R. (2025, September 7). Just how bad would an AI bubble be? The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/economy/archive/2025/09/ai-bubble-us-economy/684128/
Kosta, D. (2025, January 13; updated July 1, 2025). State AI Guidance for K12 Schools. AI for Education. Retrieved from https://www.aiforeducation.io/ai-resources/state-ai-guidance
Langreo, L. (2025, January 30). Schools’ AI policies are still not clear to teachers and students. Education Week. Retrieved from https://www.edweek.org/technology/schools-ai-policies-are-still-not-clear-to-teachers-and-students/2025/01
Marcus, G. (2025, September 5). AI and the rise of techno-fascism in the United States [Audio podcast episode]. In G. Kasparov (Host), Autocracy in America. The Atlantic.
National Education Association. (2024, July 4). Teaching in the age of AI. NEA Today. Last updated September 25, 2024. https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/teaching-age-ai
O’Donnel, J. and Crownhart, C. We did the math on AI’s energy footprint. Here’s the story you haven’t heard. (2025, May 20). MIT Technology Review. https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/05/20/1116327/ai-energy-usage-climate-footprint-big-tech/
UNESCO. (n.d.). Artificial intelligence in education. In Digital Education. Retrieved [24 August 2025], from https://www.unesco.org/en/digital-education/artificial-intelligence
U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Technology. (2023, May). Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Teaching and Learning: Insights and Recommendations. Washington, DC. https://www.ed.gov/sites/ed/files/documents/ai-report/ai-report.pdf
Remember back in 2012 when classrooms and colleges were going to be replaced by MOOCs?
While I agree that there are so many ways that librarians are posed to support our students and fellow educators through the AI jungle, I find it very unsettling when we talk about ourselves as “information specialists” and then say things like “What does AI do? It finds information.”
As leaders in this discussion, we need to be specific about what we’re talking about. When we say “What does AI do?” Are we talking about ChatGPT or my Rumba? They both run use AI, but are very different models. When we say things like “They find information” we ourselves become part of the system that is obfuscating how generative AI systems work. They don’t “find” anything they generate responses based on what is statistically likely.
I completely agree with you, no matter where one falls on the AI spectrum (both the use of stolen works and the research coming out on the cognitive degradation that occurs when using generative AI has me on the skeptical side), our responsibility it to provide our students and colleagues with accurate information so they can come to their own conclusions about how generative AI and other AI models best fit into their lives and how to use such systems as ethically as possible. However, in order to be these leaders we have to be precise and accurate with our language.
Exactly! We cannot give up our role as information leaders simply because we don’t agree; our school communities need guidance. Thanks for this article!