The IMLS-funded Responsible AI in Libraries and Archives project has published four new case studies, released in September 2026, that show how its Viewfinder toolkit works on real AI projects. Viewfinder is a participatory toolkit for ethical reflection on AI in libraries and archives, organized around different stakeholder perspectives. It was developed by librarians and technology ethicists at Montana State University, the University of Montana, James Madison University, and Iowa State University, based on research conducted from 2022 to 2025. The case studies cover a useful range of practice:
- Robin Camille Davis on AI-generated device descriptions
- Joshua Finnell on an organizational values inventory
- Hannah McKelvey on evaluating AI features in licensed library resources
- Erin Wolfe on newspaper collection metadata
Together they show what values-driven AI decision-making looks like in everyday library work, from vendor platforms to digital collections. Alongside the case studies, the project offers an interactive web version of Viewfinder, a print-at-home version on OSF, and a demo video of a sample session recorded in August 2026. Explore the case studies and toolkit.
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This post was produced through a cooperation between Kayla Abner, Amy Gay, and Claire Burns (Editors-at-Large), Hillary Richardson and Molly McGuire (Editors for the week), Nickoal Eichmann-Kalwara, Caitlin Christian-Lamb, Ruth Carpenter, Pamella Lach, Christine Salek, and Rachel Starry (dh+lib Review Editors), and Tom Lee (Technical Editor).