Ethical leadership and the future of public libraries

I have never been frightened of technology. In fact, some of my clearest memories involve trying to work out what I could make it do.

My first encounter with a computer was in Grade 6, which probably gives away something about my age. I remember being fascinated by it almost immediately. There was something extraordinary about typing an instruction and seeing the machine respond. Later, I spent hours learning basic coding, writing what seemed like pages of instructions just to move a cursor into a square on a screen. The result was hardly revolutionary, but the fact that I could make it happen was.

That fascination stayed with me. I bought one of the early Apple Macintosh computers released in Australia and began what has become a lifelong attachment to Macs in almost every shape and form. Over the years I taught myself Photoshop, explored digital filmmaking and music production, spent more time coding than was probably sensible and, of course, devoted a considerable number of hours to computer games. My Nintendo 64 remains part of that technological history, although perhaps not the most professionally productive part of it.

Each new technology seemed to open another door. Digital photography transformed how we created and manipulated images. Photoshop changed what was possible creatively. Digital filmmaking put sophisticated production tools into the hands of people who previously could not have accessed them. The internet fundamentally changed how we found and shared information. Smartphones placed enormous computing power in our pockets. I have generally greeted each of these changes with curiosity rather than apprehension, wanting to understand the technology, experiment with it and work out where it might be useful.

You could reasonably describe me as an enthusiastic technology user. I like change, I find innovation exciting and I am usually interested in trying something new before I have entirely worked out what I am going to do with it. And yet, nothing in that experience quite prepared me for Artificial Intelligence (AI).

What has struck me most about generative AI is not simply what the technology can do, but the speed at which its capability is changing and the breadth of what one system can now support. I use AI regularly as part of my working practice - to help create, review, test, interrogate and expand ideas. It can move between strategic thinking, research, analysis, writing and problem-solving in ways that would have seemed extraordinary to me even a few years ago. For someone who remembers writing lines of code simply to make something move across a screen, that shift is difficult to overstate.

It was partly that sense of possibility, and partly the questions it raised, that led me to complete the Oxford University AI Programme in early 2026. I wanted to understand much more than how to use generative AI. I wanted to understand where artificial intelligence had come from, the different technologies sitting beneath the broad term ‘AI’, how organisations were integrating it, the ethical and governance issues emerging around it, and where current forecasts suggested it might take us.

I was surprised by how much I learned, but perhaps more importantly, the program changed the questions I was asking. I could immediately see practical applications and opportunities. I could also see more clearly the scale of the leadership challenge. The deeper I went into AI, the less I saw it simply as a technology issue.

That has become particularly important in my role as CEO of Your Library Limited. Artificial intelligence is already part of the environment in which public libraries operate and the communities we serve. Staff are experimenting with AI to assist with research, draft correspondence, summarise information, generate ideas and create content. AI capabilities are also increasingly embedded within the digital platforms and services organisations use every day. At the same time, our communities are encountering AI through education, workplaces, government services, search engines, social media and online information, sometimes without even realising that artificial intelligence has influenced what they are seeing.

For public libraries, this creates considerable opportunity. AI has the potential to improve access to information, support translation and accessibility, reduce repetitive administrative work, assist staff and create new opportunities for learning and creativity. But the more I have learned about AI, the more convinced I have become that the most important questions are not about what the technology can do. They are about how we decide what it should do, where its limits should sit, who remains accountable for its use and how we ensure human judgement remains central.

At Your Library Limited, these questions have moved quickly from theory into practice. As a large public library service working across three local government areas, we wanted to explore the opportunities AI could provide while ensuring our approach reflected the responsibilities that already underpin our work with communities: equity, inclusion, privacy, access, professional integrity and public trust.

Rather than treating AI primarily as a technology project, we therefore made a deliberate decision to approach it as an organisational leadership and governance issue. AI has the potential to influence how information is produced and interpreted, how decisions are made, how staff work and how people experience public services. Introducing it responsibly requires more than selecting the right platform or writing instructions about appropriate use. It requires an organisation to be clear about its values, its boundaries and the things it is not prepared to delegate to technology.

That became the starting point for our work.

Starting with leadership and values

Our work began by bringing our leadership team together for a dedicated workshop on AI, ethics and organisational responsibility. The intention was not simply to demonstrate new AI tools or identify efficiencies. Instead, we wanted our leaders to develop a shared understanding of what responsible AI adoption should mean within a public library organisation.

The discussion considered practical questions about where AI might assist our work, but we also deliberately explored more difficult territory. We considered the kinds of decisions that should never be automated, where human oversight must remain mandatory, what inappropriate use of organisational or community information might look like, and how the use of AI could potentially undermine the trust our communities place in us.

These conversations reinforced that AI governance cannot simply be delegated to an ICT team. The technology may be digital, but the questions it creates extend across privacy, information governance, equity, accessibility, professional judgement, workforce capability, organisational culture and reputation. These are leadership and governance responsibilities, and they require leaders to understand enough about the technology to make informed decisions while remaining firmly focused on organisational purpose.

This collaborative work informed the development of Your Library Limited’s AI Principles and Artificial Intelligence Policy, which were endorsed by our Board in April 2026. The Principles were designed to guide responsible, ethical and community-centred AI use across the organisation, with the explicit objectives of supporting our mission, protecting community trust and strengthening service delivery. The accompanying Policy translates those commitments into a practical governance framework for how AI can be developed, procured, trialled and used within the organisation.

Importantly, the process was not simply about producing two governance documents. Working through the issues collectively gave our leaders an opportunity to question assumptions, consider different perspectives and develop a shared language around AI. That shared understanding matters because ethical practice will ultimately be determined by hundreds of everyday decisions across an organisation, not by the existence of a policy sitting somewhere on an intranet.

Applying library values to a new environment

One of the most useful realisations through this work was that many of the ethical questions raised by AI are not actually new to libraries. Our profession has long grappled with questions of privacy, equitable access, intellectual freedom, authority, information quality and professional responsibility. The environment may be changing rapidly, but we are not starting without an ethical foundation.

Your Library Limited’s AI Principles reflect that continuity. They cover community benefit and public value; equity, inclusion and accessibility; transparency and explainability; privacy, security and data stewardship; safety, reliability and risk management; human oversight and accountability; ethical use and responsible innovation; staff capability and wellbeing; continuous evaluation and improvement; and partnership, collaboration and sector leadership.

Taken together, the Principles establish an expectation that adopting AI must have a clear purpose. Technology should meaningfully improve community outcomes, library experiences or organisational effectiveness, rather than being introduced simply because it is available. They also recognise that the benefits and risks of AI will not be experienced equally. Accessibility, language, digital literacy and algorithmic bias all need to be considered when assessing whether a particular use of AI is genuinely serving the whole community.

Two commitments have become particularly important in articulating our approach. The first is that AI should ‘…support – not replace – the human relationships at the heart of public library service’. The second is that ‘…staff remain responsible for decisions; AI provides support, not authority’.

These statements are intentionally straightforward, but they address one of the most important issues facing organisations adopting AI. Artificial intelligence can assist people to analyse, draft, summarise, search and generate. It cannot assume professional accountability. If an AI-supported process contributes to a decision affecting a staff member, library user or community, responsibility for that decision cannot disappear into the technology.

This becomes particularly important because AI can produce information that appears authoritative while being inaccurate. It can reinforce existing bias, overlook context, oversimplify complex situations or generate information that is simply wrong. As these tools become more sophisticated and their outputs become more convincing, professional judgement becomes more important rather than less.

For libraries, that distinction goes to the heart of our work. Many library interactions involve circumstances that cannot be reduced to a transaction. People come to libraries for information and resources, but they also come for support, learning, connection and assistance navigating increasingly complex systems. A staff member may be responding to someone with limited digital literacy, helping a person access an essential government service or assisting someone who is uncertain about whether information they have encountered online can be trusted. Context, empathy and professional judgement matter in these interactions, and the role of technology should be to strengthen the ability of our people to provide that support rather than diminish the human relationship itself.

Moving from principles into everyday practice

The challenge after developing our Principles was to ensure they could be translated into everyday organisational practice. Our AI Policy therefore establishes a risk-based approach rather than treating every use of artificial intelligence as equivalent. This allows relatively straightforward uses to be managed proportionately while applying significantly greater scrutiny to AI applications that could affect people, privacy, service access or organisational decision-making.

The Policy identifies normal-risk uses such as assistance with internal documents, meeting summaries, basic research and promotional content. Elevated-risk applications include systems that may influence collection development or resource allocation, AI-assisted customer services involving patron data and predictive analytics that could affect staffing or service models. These applications require enhanced governance and human oversight. Uses considered inconsistent with our responsibilities – including surveillance, profiling or facial recognition of library patrons, inappropriate use of sensitive personal data, or systems that discriminate against vulnerable community groups – are prohibited.

This approach reflects an important principle in our Policy: governance should be proportionate to risk. All proposed AI use cases are required to be registered before adoption, screened and classified, assessed where required and approved at the appropriate governance level. Higher-risk systems therefore receive greater scrutiny, while lower-risk uses can proceed within clearly understood boundaries.

Governance is sometimes characterised as being in tension with innovation, particularly when technology is moving quickly. Our experience has led me to see the relationship differently. Clear governance can enable responsible experimentation because people understand the boundaries within which they are operating. Staff can have greater confidence about what they can use AI for, what information must be protected, when they need further advice and when a proposed use requires additional assessment.

That confidence is important because one of the greatest risks associated with AI may not come from a major system formally procured by an organisation. It may come from the everyday use that nobody sees. Generative AI tools are remarkably accessible, and staff in organisations everywhere are experimenting with them because they can be useful, convenient and increasingly embedded in existing software. The risk is that this experimentation can occur before organisational guidance has caught up, potentially without sufficient consideration of privacy, confidentiality, intellectual property, data security or accuracy.

A purely restrictive response is unlikely to solve that problem. If staff believe they should not acknowledge using AI, experimentation may simply become invisible. Leadership therefore needs to create an environment where people can speak openly about what they are trying, where AI has helped, where it has failed and where they are uncertain about appropriate use. Creating psychological safety around those conversations is itself an important component of responsible governance.

Building capability, not simply providing tools

This is why staff capability is an explicit part of Your Library Limited’s AI Principles and Policy. Our commitment is to provide staff with training, guidance and resources that enable them to use AI safely and confidently, while also understanding its limitations. Staff input is expected to inform design, testing and implementation, and AI should, where possible, reduce unnecessary workload and enable greater focus on higher-value work rather than adding complexity.

Introducing an AI platform into an organisation does not make that organisation AI-ready. Readiness requires governance, policy and risk management, but it also requires shared understanding, critical thinking and a culture in which people are confident enough to question the technology rather than simply accepting its outputs. Our leadership discussions reinforced that staff need confidence not only in how to use AI, but also in recognising when not to use it.

For leaders, there is also a responsibility to model that behaviour. We should be transparent when we use AI ourselves, verify information rather than assuming that a polished answer is a correct answer, and be willing to question whether AI is appropriate for a particular task. Responsible adoption should not be measured by how much AI an organisation manages to incorporate into its work. Sometimes the most responsible decision will be not to use it.

This also raises an important workforce question. If AI helps reduce administrative workload, the benefit should not automatically be understood as an opportunity to remove the human capacity that has been freed. In a public library context, there is a significant opportunity to reinvest that capacity into the work technology does not replicate well: relationship-building, outreach, inclusion, learning and community connection. Technology may make processes more efficient, but efficiency is not the same as impact. The opportunity is to use technology to create greater capacity for the human work that makes libraries meaningful to their communities.

AI literacy is becoming library business

The leadership challenge extends beyond how we use AI internally. Public libraries also have an important role in helping communities understand and navigate an increasingly AI-mediated information environment.

Digital literacy is already central to contemporary public library practice. We support people as technology changes how they access information, communicate, study, work and interact with government and other essential services. AI literacy is becoming the next part of that continuum.

This cannot simply mean teaching people how to use generative AI tools or construct an effective prompt. Communities also need the skills and confidence to critically evaluate AI-generated information. They need to understand that a fluent answer is not necessarily an accurate one; that algorithmic systems may reproduce bias; that images, video and audio can be artificially generated; and that information entered into online tools may have privacy implications.

Our professional role therefore includes encouraging healthy scepticism alongside capability. Communities need support not only to use AI tools but also to understand why they should not always trust those tools uncritically. This is not a departure from traditional library practice; it is an extension of it. Helping people locate information has always been only part of our work. Libraries also help people understand sources, evaluate authority, distinguish reliable information from misinformation and develop the confidence to navigate complex information environments independently. AI makes that work more urgent.

It also presents significant opportunities. AI may help improve discoverability, provide multilingual support, assist with accessible communication and support people with different literacy levels and abilities. It may help libraries provide more responsive services and create new ways for communities to learn and create. These possibilities should be explored, but accessibility and innovation need to be accompanied by an understanding of who may be excluded, whose data is being used and whether a technological solution genuinely improves the experience of the people we serve.

Trust as a strategic responsibility

Perhaps the most significant issue running through all of this is trust. Libraries operate in an information environment in which trust is becoming increasingly difficult to establish. Misinformation, synthetic content, algorithmic bias and uncertainty about the provenance of online information are already affecting how people understand the world around them. At the same time, communities continue to expect libraries to provide equitable access to information, protect privacy, support learning and act in the public interest.

That trust is an enormous asset, but it is also a responsibility. We cannot assume that because a new technology is useful, convenient or widely adopted commercially, it automatically aligns with the expectations people have of a public library. Nor should libraries become passive consumers of commercial AI platforms. We should be active participants in determining the conditions under which these technologies are introduced into our organisations and services.

This means asking vendors difficult questions about how information is handled, stored and retained, understanding whether AI-supported decisions can be explained and challenged, considering what safeguards exist around personal information, and determining what happens when a system produces harmful or inaccurate results. Your Library Limited’s Policy requires third-party arrangements to address data handling, storage, retention and use, while AI-supported processes must be explainable at a level appropriate to staff and the community.

These requirements are not intended to prevent innovation. They recognise that innovation in a public institution must be accompanied by accountability, and that public trust can take many years to establish but can be damaged very quickly when technology is adopted without sufficient consideration of its consequences.

Leading when the technology will not stand still

One of the realities of AI leadership is that this work will never really be finished. The technology is developing too rapidly for any policy or governance framework to be regarded as permanent. New capabilities will emerge, regulatory expectations will change and tools that appear significant today may quickly be replaced by something else.

Our AI Policy therefore requires ongoing monitoring and at least annual review, with earlier review where there are significant regulatory changes, incidents or new AI capabilities. AI is also incorporated into existing risk and audit processes rather than being treated as an isolated technology issue.

That willingness to review, question and learn is important. Responsible leadership does not require us to predict exactly what artificial intelligence will look like in five years. It requires us to establish strong enough principles that we can continue to make thoughtful decisions as the technology changes.

Through our work at Your Library Limited, and through my own professional learning in AI, I have found myself returning to three deceptively simple questions: why are we using AI, and is it genuinely improving an organisational or community outcome? Where must human judgement remain central because a decision involves ethics, vulnerability, empathy or context? And, regardless of what the technology recommends or produces, who remains accountable for the outcome?

These are questions of purpose, judgement and responsibility. They do not provide a technical framework for every possible AI application, nor are they intended to. Their value is that they bring the conversation back to why we are using the technology in the first place, and to the human responsibility that must remain around it.

Public libraries should approach the future of AI with confidence rather than fear. There are genuine opportunities to improve accessibility, strengthen services, support staff, expand learning and help our communities participate in a rapidly changing digital world. But successful adoption should not be measured by the number of AI tools we introduce or the amount of work we automate. It should be measured by whether those tools help us deliver better outcomes while preserving the things our communities value about libraries: equity, privacy, trust, learning, professional integrity and human connection.

Libraries have adapted to extraordinary technological change throughout their history. We have moved through changes in formats, information systems, the internet, mobile technologies, digital collections and social media while continually reconsidering how our professional values apply in each new environment. AI represents another significant transition, although its speed, accessibility and reach make the leadership challenge particularly urgent.

We do not need to reinvent our values to meet that challenge. We need to apply them deliberately and make them visible in the decisions we take. Artificial intelligence will undoubtedly change some of our tools, workflows and services, and it may profoundly change the way our communities create, find and evaluate information. Our responsibility is to ensure that, as those changes occur, technology remains in service of people rather than the other way around.

For Your Library Limited, that is ultimately what ethical AI leadership means: being willing to explore the possibilities of new technology while remaining very clear about what we are trying to protect. Human judgement, community trust and the relationships at the heart of public libraries must remain central to whatever comes next.

Dr Karina Lamb
Chief Executive Officer, Your Library Limited
ALIA Institutional Board Director

Your Library Limited is a not-for-profit public library service delivering library services on behalf of Knox, Maroondah and Yarra Ranges councils in Melbourne’s east. One of Victoria’s largest public library services, Your Library Limited operates 14 library branches and three reading rooms, alongside outreach and digital services, serving a community of more than 430,000 people. And yes, AI did assist with the review of this article – but the thought and content are my own.