Atla Annual 2025

The rapid popularity and adoption of generative AI tools are transforming how students learn, research, and create. Generative AI tools, such as ChatGPT, Copilot, and Gemini, are becoming ubiquitous in educational environments, yet little is known about how university students use them. This study investigates students’ use, attitudes, and beliefs surrounding these powerful technologies, aiming to identify critical gaps in understanding, perceived challenges, and necessary training interventions. Our research addresses several key questions: (1) How are students currently utilizing generative AI in their work? (2) What are their perceptions of the benefits and risks associated with these tools? (3) What misconceptions or knowledge gaps exist regarding the functionality, limitations, and ethical implications of generative AI? (4) What challenges do students face in effectively and ethically integrating these tools into their learning processes? Finally, (5) what targeted training and support structures are needed to empower students to leverage the potential of generative AI responsibly and effectively? This presentation will provide actionable insights for educators, librarians, and administrators seeking to address students’ use of AI in educational environments and explore what training opportunities would benefit students at this time.

Learning Outcome

By the end of this session, the attendees will:
1) Gain an understanding of how students perceive and use GenAI tools in their academic work;
2) Recognize students’ misconceptions, perceived risks, and challenges related to the ethical use of GenAI tools;
3) Apply the findings of the study to designing educational interventions to promote ethical and critical engagement with GenAI tools.

Audience Engagement

Our presentation will engage the participants using interactive presentation elements called Slido. This tool allows us to have anonymous online interactions with the session attendees. We will explore the attendees’ beliefs about students’ needs with regard to GenAI, and what educational interventions do the attendees provide in their respective institutions. In addition, we will have an editable document with the resources, which will be an important takeaway from the session.

Librarians, including theological librarians, are commonly considered to be, and generally aspire to be, neutral. Regardless of personal feelings and beliefs, we will gladly help you find a copy of Mein Kampf, The Communist Manifesto, Late Great Planet Earth, or Malleus Maleficarum. Such professional neutrality seems especially precious, and threatened, in our increasingly polarized culture. Yet, are there ever times when it may be appropriate to set aspirations to neutrality and objectivity aside, and share our convictions? When, if ever, might if be acceptable to state our opinions or express our beliefs when conducting a reference interview or providing feedback on a student’s paper? Is neutrality even possible? How does neutrality relate to equity? This session will provide an opportunity to consider, debate, and discuss these important questions.

Learning Outcome

Attendees will come away with a greater, if more nuanced, appreciation for the complexities inherent in the professional aspiration toward neutrality and objectivity. At the same time, they will come away with a deeper understanding of the reasons it may at times be necessary and appropriate to set aside this aspiration. Such insights can help guide both reference interviews with students and acquisitions decisions.

Audience Engagement

We plan to engage our audience by considering timely and urgent questions that touch on the heart of our professional identity. We will also offer an opportunity for them to share their own insights and concerns in the discussion.

This listen and learn session focuses on strategies for curating/acquiring resources for the Hispanic/Latino program at your school. Biblioteca Digital Pitts will be presented as a case-study of becoming informed about the Latino and Latin American theologies; the role of language in determining content; assessment of the needs of the program; the librarian as a reviewer of materials; incorporating resources from different traditions; and selecting systems for content delivery.

Learning Outcome

The audience will learn to develop a strategy for identifying and assessing resources for their Hispanic/Latino programs.

Audience Engagement

There will be opportunity to ask questions and share stories with other members of the audience.

Is your library prepared to lead in the rapidly evolving landscape of AI? In this cutting-edge session, we will explore our forthcoming ALA monograph, Claim the Center: Libraries, AI, and the Future of Learning and Work, to equip hearers with essential strategies that position libraries as central players in this technological transition. Drawing from our book, we'll explore how libraries can leverage AI to amplify their core values and mission, engaging at the edge of innovation while sustaining and enriching the work we have always done. Discover how the human-centered approach that has always characterized librarianship becomes even more critical in shaping an equitable and accessible future. We will examine practices that embody our five policy values of transparency, rigor, curiosity, inclusion, and play, activating the synergy of information literacy and AI implementation. This session empowers participants across library types and experience levels—from day-to-day practitioners to forward-thinking innovators and decision-makers—with the knowledge and framework needed to navigate the current AI landscape. Now is our once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for libraries and librarians to claim the center in our shared future.

Learning Outcomes

Participants will be able to:
1. Apply a framework for navigating the AI landscape that aligns libraries' core values with emerging technologies across diverse library settings.
2. Analyze the role of a human-centered approach in promoting equity and accessibility in AI integration within libraries.
3. Evaluate strategies for positioning libraries as central players in the AI-driven technological transition.

Audience Engagement

We plan to center AI-empowered research instruction, providing space for robust engagement (e.g., sharing participant experiences, tool exploration, etc.) Our program introduces an innovative approach by emphasizing the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy as foundational to AI literacy. This perspective bridges traditional library instructional values with cutting-edge technology and innovation. We present a fresh framework for navigating the AI landscape that aligns libraries' core values with emerging technologies across diverse settings. By reimagining information literacy for the AI age, we offer new methods for cultivating empathy in AI implementation and applying core policy values for ethical AI integration. Our human-centered approach to AI in libraries represents an innovative method for balancing technological advancement with human needs and values, ensuring that libraries remain central in shaping an AI-literate society. So, lots of room for discussion, debate, and sharing.

Theological education is rapidly changing, and our institutions are trying to respond to keep up. Library staff can either hunker down or become adaptive. This session will look at adaptive leadership. The presenter will also talk about identifying and developing skills within the library staff to help them to innovate and lead change instead of what some call "sabotaging change." We will also look at when resilience becomes a roadblock to change. There will be some time spent in discussion.

Learning Outcome

1. Participants will gain tips for mentoring their library staff.
2. Participants will learn to determine what changes are appropriate and how to begin to experiment.
3. Participants will brainstorm ways to keep them from becoming saboteurs of change.

Audience Engagement

There will be a discussion time when the participants will share and brainstorm ideas.