As artificial intelligence continues to reshape higher education, Creighton Libraries are positioning themselves as campus hubs for AI literacy, combining classroom instruction, emerging technology resources and research support to help students navigate a rapidly evolving landscape.
“When people think of AI, we hope that they think of the library,” said Yvonne Dooley, head of research and instruction at Creighton University Libraries.
For Dooley, the effort is not simply about introducing students to new tools, but about building a broader framework for responsible and informed AI use. That work includes generative AI literacy learning outcomes designed to help students understand how AI works, use it effectively, evaluate its outputs and consider its broader social and ethical implications.
“This is a natural fit for us,” Dooley said, describing how AI literacies build upon the library’s traditional role in information literacy instruction.
That work has taken shape in classrooms across campus. Librarians have been integrating discussions of AI into instruction sessions, while also introducing students to tools supported by the library, including Keenious, Scopus AI, Scite and Research Rabbit.
“There’s two components to this,” said Ian Hughes, research and instruction librarian for humanities. “There’s the tool part, like the tools that we’re getting and then there’s the information literacy part.”
Hughes emphasized that the larger goal is not simply teaching students to use AI tools, but teaching them how to think critically about them.
“This is just a different type of information literacy. It’s AI literacy,” Hughes said.
Hughes said many of the same standards used in traditional information literacy apply to AI, including evaluating where information comes from and recognizing inherent bias in sources.
“Those same topics, when we teach that, we teach it to be critical the same way,” Hughes said. “It’s just a different way of doing it.”
He added that students must think critically not only about AI outputs, but about the data and sources that shape those outputs, including whose perspectives may be represented — or missing.
That includes helping students understand how to verify AI-generated information, recognize bias and approach outputs critically.
Rose Melonis, research and instruction librarian for social sciences, said one major area of instruction involves helping students understand the limits of AI-generated answers, particularly hallucinations.
“Hallucinations are hard to detect because that’s the problem with AI … it thinks it’s always right and it’s very much like this is the right answer, the end,” Melonis said.
“You just have to double check what the output is and make sure it’s real,” she said.
Melonis added that this is why AI should supplement, not replace, traditional research methods.
“You still want to use the databases; you still want to use the catalog,” Melonis said. “Those are real things in there.”
“It can be helpful as a tool, but not as the be-all and end-all tool,” Hughes said.
Melonis said librarians also work to distinguish between general generative AI tools and research-focused AI tools drawn from vetted databases.
“Keenious and Scopus AI are pulling from official databases,” Melonis said. “There’s less of a chance of hallucinations for those than if it’s just pulling from the internet at large.”
Rather than promoting unrestricted AI use, librarians said much of their instruction centers on practical and ethical use, including when AI may be appropriate, how to use it responsibly and how to avoid academic dishonesty.
“I don’t know a single English teacher that would be fine with someone having ChatGPT write their paper for them,” Hughes said.
At the same time, Hughes pushed back on assumptions that students are uncritical users of AI.
“Students know more than some [people] are giving them credit for,” Hughes said.
Beyond classroom instruction, librarians are also contributing to research on how students are engaging with artificial intelligence.
Hughes said Creighton librarians are working with a university in England on research focused on students’ opinions about AI, particularly among first-year students.
“We’re looking to publish research,” Hughes said. “One thing that I also noticed [is] students seem to be interested in how their careers are going to be impacted by AI.”
Beyond classroom instruction, the libraries are expanding access to AI through an emerging technologies lab, part of a broader effort to grow AI-related services.
“We’re trying to be that bridge,” Dooley said, referring to the library’s role in helping students prepare for a workforce increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence.
“Students are expected to know how to use AI in the workforce,” Dooley said. “We want to help prepare students.”
That work, however, has not come without challenges.
Dooley said one major obstacle is integrating AI literacy instruction into already crowded curricula.
“The biggest challenge is trying to get faculty to let us in those classrooms,” Dooley said.
Librarians are also navigating the challenge of keeping pace with technology that is evolving almost daily.
“Every day there’s a new advancement,” Dooley said.
That rapid change, Hughes said, is one reason he sees AI less as a disruption that replaces work and more as a technology that changes how work is done.
“In the late ‘90s, they told us the internet was going to take away a bunch of jobs,” Hughes said. “It just changed the way we did our jobs. And I feel that same way about AI.”
The initiative also aligns with the work of university librarian, Michael Paulus, whose scholarship and campus lecture, “The Place of AI in a Hope-Filled Future,” has helped shape the university’s broader conversations about artificial intelligence.
For Dooley, the goal in the coming years is to further establish the library as a central resource for students seeking guidance in a changing technological environment.
“Our goal in the next few years is to really solidify our literacy program around AI and really integrate ourselves into the curriculum,” Dooley said.