ARLIS/NA 54th Annual Conference

This panel, sponsored by the ARLIS/NA Critical Librarianship SIG, will feature presentations that critically engage the topic of artificial intelligence in technical services. As libraries and library workers are increasingly called upon to variously adopt, teach, or provide guidance on AI tools in our work, it is crucial that we also lead the way in critically assessing, and guiding others in critically assessing, the material conditions of artificial intelligence and its impacts on information integrity, intellectual property, civil discourse, and natural ecosystems.

Resisting the disruption: creating space to consider ‘AI’ in cataloging
Speaker: Amy Watson

This presentation will examine the push to adopt “AI” in cataloging. By decoding Silicon Valley’s rhetoric of disruption, library workers can create the space to evaluate the long-term sustainability and impact of “AI” technologies, develop ethical guidelines for their use, and imagine alternate pathways to address the needs driving the pressure to adopt “AI” in cataloging. Though focused on cataloging, the presentation will touch on core issues in critical librarianship and attendees will gain tools to begin resisting the disruption in their own library work.

Reimagining Metadata: Featuring an AI-Driven, Holistic Tool for Transformative Cataloguing and Discovery of Marginalized Collections
Speakers: Amy Andres, Liya Louis

GenXCat is an open-access, holistic, multilingual template series that integrates generative AI with human-in-the-loop oversight to create inclusive metadata for unique and underrepresented bibliographic and non-bibliographic collections. Developed in an academic art library, it addresses biases in AI-generated cataloging, resisting Anglophone dominance by enabling transliteration and multilingual description and culturally specific terminology while preserving cataloguer authority. GenXCat supports learning for new cataloguers, aligns with DEIA-AR values, and promotes ethical AI use while raising awareness of the limitations of current copyright laws and the need to reimagine copyright and policy frameworks. By broadening access to marginalized materials, it advances Universal Bibliographic Control and offers adaptable documentation for global library adoption.

Embodied Knowledge as Resistance: Designing Ethical AI for Cultural Heritage Archives
Speaker: Shan Chuah

This presentation examines an AI prototype developed in collaboration with Amazon Web Services to support the cataloguing needs of the Cross-Cultural Dance Resources collections at Arizona State University. These collections span more than seventy years of rare ethnographic documentation and provide a vital record of movement-based traditions from many parts of the world. The project explores how automated video analysis and culturally informed metadata design can improve access to dance materials that are often compressed into a single undifferentiated category within cataloguing systems. By integrating Laban movement analysis frameworks, the work investigates how AI can enhance discovery while resisting reductive classification. The results indicate that intelligent chunking and targeted machine learning can reduce processing costs and expand technical capacity for institutions responsible for sizable non-textual heritage collections. At the same time, the project uses these technical outcomes to open a broader critical conversation about the values that shape automated systems. It considers how AI models interpret cultural material, how archival labor shifts when automation becomes a routine part of technical services, and how librarians may influence the ethical direction of these tools. Through this case study, the project proposes ways in which art librarians, as custodians of cultural memory, can guide AI toward practices that respect traditional knowledge systems and contribute to sustainable stewardship of embodied heritage.