(22 Sept 2025) Research suggests nearly half of all tasks in the information services sector could be transformed by AI. This isn’t a distant future scenario—it’s happening now. What can we do to shape the impact of AI on libraries and library workers?
The free Futurescape Libraries AI Toolkit will help you and your colleagues plan, develop policies and operations, and position your organization to thrive in the AI landscape.
The toolkit was developed with early financial support from the US Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and ongoing support from the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI). Keith Webster, the Helen and Henry Posner Jr. Dean of University Libraries at Carnegie Mellon University and a professional futurist, created the toolkit for the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) and CNI as a means to explore scenario-specific strategies and activities that libraries can undertake to prepare for various AI-influenced futures.
The Futurescape Libraries AI Toolkit integrates the ARL/CNI AI Scenarios along with priorities trialed and refined by strategic thinkers working in the research library field during a Strategic Implications forum in December 2024.
Research library leaders who want to integrate the ARL/CNI AI Scenarios into planning activities—such as annual operating plans, strategic reviews, or cross-institutional conversations—will find this toolkit useful.
Organized into flexible modules, the toolkit offers structured activities to help library leadership teams, staff, and external stakeholders:
- Explore future possibilities
- Test current strategies
- Identify opportunities and vulnerabilities
- Build readiness for long-term change
Scenarios don’t predict the future, they prepare us to navigate uncertainty. Scenarios help us move from reactive to proactive positions, from defensive planning to strategic leadership. Use the Futurescape Libraries AI Toolkit to strategically engage with AI and shape the future.
