By Ellis Willard
To borrow from The Police’s 1983 hit song, it feels as though every breath you take and every move you make, artificial intelligence is there — offered as a tool, service, personal assistant, and all-around solution to all problems.
And yet, printing technology, now central to centuries of intellectual growth, was once dismissed as a “dangerous” innovation that threatened established ways of thinking. Sound familiar?
AI has come to campus, and it has come to West Virginia University Libraries in ways that might surprise. From cultural programming to literacy education to practical applications for advancing the ways librarians and archivists work, WVU Libraries is exploring how AI can support creativity, research, and instruction across campus.
Sparking conversations about AI with events and exhibits
Last fall, the WVU Libraries Art in the Libraries initiative opened the cross-campus exhibition “Artificial Intelligence: Shaping Futures, Impacting Lives.” Art in the Libraries not only showcased contributions from students, staff, and scholars, but also took a unique approach by designing the exhibit with AI assistance, and thoughtful human edits throughout.
To mark the launch of the exhibit, Art in the Libraries invited the WVU community and the public to a panel discussion moderated by Director of the Humanities Center and Professor of Philosophy Dr. Sharon Ryan. While the exhibit offers a visual exploration of AI, the panel extended the conversation, bringing together voices from across campus and the community to unpack its meaning and impact.
Attendees listen to AI experts at the panel event.
“We chose this theme for its relevance to our time. As a library, we’re uniquely positioned to bring together diverse disciplines and perspectives, making space for dialogue about technologies like AI and how it will shape — and be shaped by — our shared future,” said WVU Libraries Art in the Libraries Curator Sally Brown. “Hearing from experts alongside experiencing the exhibit invites us to reflect not just on technology, but on what it means to be human in an AI-saturated world.”
Nearly every chair in the room filled, both panelists and audience members tackled questions like: How is AI impacting student learning? Is AI the great equalizer? What are the costs and benefits of data centers for West Virginians? How is AI being used to improve the quality of healthcare? How is AI impacting what it means to be human?
“I hope attendees came away with a stronger understanding of how the way people talk about these technologies does not always line up with how they actually work, and what they can and can’t do,” said event panelist, WVU Department of English Gaziano Family Legacy Professor and Associate Professor Jennifer Sano-Franchini. “I hope we all think about this tension on a deeper level moving forward.”
AI expert panelists from left to right: Michael Hu, PhD, assistant professor, Department of Microbiology; Mohamed Hefeida, PhD, teaching associate professor, Lane Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering; Megan Vendemia, PhD, assistant professor, Department of Communication Studies; Jennifer Sano-Franchini, Gaziano family legacy professor and associate professor, Department of English; Amy Cyphert, JD, associate professor, College of Law. Not seen: Brad Price, PhD, department chair and associate professor, Department of Management Information Systems; Sharon Ryan, PhD, director, WVU Humanities Center and professor, Department of Philosophy.
The conversation underscored what the exhibit itself embodies: that art can open space for reflection and shared understanding.
The exhibit will remain on view through May 2026, rotating among the Downtown, Evansdale, and Health Sciences Libraries before continuing to WVU Tech and WVU Potomac State College, with potential for further installations.
Integrating AI awareness into information literacy
Even before OpenAI released ChatGPT to the public in 2022, students were starting to use AI tools for academic classwork. That was when WVU Libraries’ Student Success and Instruction (SSI) department started discussing how to guide students in using these tools responsibly.
What began as a focused element within Introduction to Library Research (ULIB 101) quickly evolved into a comprehensive module on the appropriate and inappropriate uses of AI in academic coursework.
“This project was a challenge because technology and context around AI were, and still are, changing so fast,” said WVU Libraries Head of SSI Kelly Diamond. “We didn’t want this tutorial to be outdated by the time we finished it. There were a lot of drafts and testing.”
The WVU Libraries AI tutorial helps students understand the various types of AI technologies; how AI is trained; methods for evaluating AI outputs; AI’s impacts on data privacy, the environment, and intellectual property; and appropriate academic and professional uses of AI.
We think if students and faculty know how AI works, then they can make better decisions about whether and when to use it. With AI here to stay, WVU Libraries is preparing future generations with the critical thinkings skills necessary in our evolving world of AI. Kelly Diamond, Head of Student Success and Instruction
“We saw this as a natural progression to the information literacy aspects of ULIB 101 because we were running into its unquestioning use more and more,” said SSI Instructional Designer Derek Brown. “Students are utilizing these tools and we’re having to decide what is potentially academic dishonesty versus what is useful research. There are a lot of gray areas, and we want students to ask themselves these questions too.”
Advancing archival description with AI
Metadata is the data that describes and organizes materials to make them easier to locate, understand, and use. It is the backbone of discoverability — the ability to find precise information in a sea of information.
Ensuring metadata is of a high quality is a complex, time-intensive endeavor that demands specialized expertise.
“Every library, including WVU Libraries, struggles to keep up with a backlog of collections and the intensiveness of digital description,” said WVU Libraries Associate Dean of Collections Danielle Emerling. “But we need to make materials digitally findable and accessible.”
Capitalizing on AI’s strengths as a pattern-finding and generating tool, the Knowledge Access and Resource Management department and the West Virginia and Regional History Center are teaming up with JSTOR, a digital library of academic journals, books, and primary sources, to develop innovative approaches for more efficiently creating complex metadata descriptions.
JSTOR’s Seeklight integrates advanced AI models, JSTOR’s infrastructure and engineering, and archivists’ expertise to address the unique challenges facing archivists today.
“Using our digital collections, we’re helping train the model to create description for complex archival materials, and we’re contributing to the library professional community at the same time,” Emerling said. “With Seeklight, what used to take years might now only take months. We hope archivists will be able to make previously hidden materials available for users.”
Seeklight will not replace the expert-level labor of archivists; it will shift the work, so data entry is less intensive, and archivists can focus on accuracy and enhancing metadata.
“Our archivists are uniquely positioned to ensure these types of systems are trustworthy and deployed ethically,” Dean of WVU Libraries Karen Diaz said. “It’s important that the tools that make our materials discoverable are built on best practices and the ethical standards that have always made libraries trusted sources of information.”
From art and conversation to curriculum and metadata, the Libraries are redefining what it means to understand, teach, and apply AI responsibly.