Semester Award Granted

Summer 2025

Submission Date

August 2025

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Thesis/Dissertation Advisor [Chair]

Katharina Rynkiewich

Abstract

With this thesis, I explore how Palm Beach County Library System administration and the broader county government are managing the advance of artificial intelligence and seeking actionable resolutions to the artificial intelligence dilemma. Due to power differentials, triangulation required me to adopt a humanist, perspectival approach. I collected data from participant observations, reflective fieldnotes, literature review, and transcription of an interview, all of which informed my interpretations. Albeit colored by past experiences, I relate my professional familiarity in a customer service training role and express the importance of engaging patron experience that is service-oriented, ongoing training intended to recenter the human individuals that make up the public. I qualify the data gathered and question the neutrality of linear representations, being subject to bias. Ultimately, I proposed resolutions as to the role of artificial intelligence in libraries, to show that speculation is no solution. Therefore, my study is meant to highlight expandable service offerings, such as maker spaces, and the brilliance of the potential to harness “The Libraries of Things” to realize a new appreciation and value of public libraries in the age of the thing.

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