Hope in the Library: How Libraries Can Help Shape Our Future with Artificial Intelligence

What is the role of the library in an increasingly complex information environment filled with and redesigned for artificial intelligence?Hope in the Library presents a compelling case for the continued relevance of libraries in an age increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence.Michael J. Paulus, Jr., shows how libraries, as human-centered and human-scaled institutions, have enduring roles as archives for reflection and understanding, sites of imagination and hope, and catalysts for human agency.This book argues that, by providing an essential counterbalance to impersonal and automated systems, libraries are essential for not only surviving but thriving in our emerging information environment. Hope in the Library is structured as a series of essays organized by explorations of the library in the past, in imagined futures, and in our digitally-enhanced present.Firsthand narrative andarchaeological history are interspersed with literary meditations from writers including MaryShelley,