AI and Library Publishing:
A Reflection

With the rise of AI entering all fields of publishing, it was inevitable that it would affect the world of library publishing too. By library publishing, I am referring to library programs ranging from small Open Educational Resources (OER) publishers to well-established university presses. As a Scholarly Communications Librarian and manager of an OER publishing program, my conversations with authors now include discussions about the use of AI. Some faculty members support using AI in their work enthusiastically, while others are more hesitant. Part of that hesitation comes from a philosophical component that AI in publishing challenges: if an OER is open, does that mean that AI has a right to use (or learn from) it too?

Ethical Disclosures

This raises a few questions about the ethics of using AI in published work. Can authors claim AI-generated content as their own work? Should universities discourage AI use completely? I ultimately think that authors, as creators, should be given the opportunity to choose if they use AI as a tool. This does not mean that authors can enter a prompt into an LLM and send it in to their editor sight unseen. Rather than using AI as a co-author, authors can use AI as a research assistant and editor.

Kari Weaver, a librarian at the University of Waterloo, developed the Artificial Intelligence Disclosure (AID) Framework so authors can share in what capacity AI was used in their work. She suggests these potential uses of AI:

“Artificial Intelligence Tool(s): The selection of tool or tools and versions of those tools used and dates of use. May also include note of any known biases or limitations of the models or data sets.

Conceptualization: The development of the research idea or hypothesis including framing or revision of research questions and hypotheses.

Methodology: The planning for the execution of the study including all direct contributions to the study design.

Information Collection: The use of AI to surface patterns in existing literature and identify information relevant to the framing, development, or design of the study.

Data Collection Method: The development or design of software or instruments used in the study.

Execution: The direct conduct of research procedures or tasks (e.g. AI web scraping, synthetic surveys, etc.)

Data Curation: The management and organization of those data.

Data Analysis: The performance of statistical or mathematical analysis, regressions, text analysis, and more using AI tools.

Privacy and Security: The ways in which data privacy and security were upheld in alignment with the expectations of ethical conduct of research, disciplinary guidelines, and institutional policies.

Interpretation: The use of AI tools to categorize, summarize, or manipulate data and suggest associated conclusions.

Visualization: The creation of visualizations or other graphical representations of the data.

Writing—Review & Editing: The revision and editing of the manuscript.

Writing—Translation: The use of AI to translate text across languages at any point in the drafting process.

Project Administration: Any administrative tasks related to the study, including managing budgets, timelines, and communications.” (Weaver, 2024)

Ideally, authors will be comfortable including such a statement in their work. Disclosing AI use should not be a barrier to publication, but there is a stigma around AI use in some university cultures. The challenge will be to assure faculty that a disclosure statement is not just one more thing to do on their never-ending checklists.

How Open Is Open?

At their core, OER are meant to be openly available, reusable, and remixable. In my publishing program, authors have the opportunity to choose a Creative Commons license for their work. All of the licenses specify that any reuse of the work must attribute the original author. Some licenses are more open than others. For example, a CC BY-ND license allows a work to be openly available but it cannot be adapted or changed in any way.

AI throws some complications into the mix. How open is the Open Education movement? If authors are making their work openly available, are they also consenting to AI being trained on their work? Should authors receive compensation if LLMs are making money off their work? There are no easy answers to these questions. The downside of Open is that once something is out there, there is really no way to control how a work is used or adapted. With the rise of AI, there is a possibility that authors will start to gravitate toward No Derivatives licensing. Work will still be openly available but without the ability to remix or adapt. Librarians are in a unique position to educate authors about their rights and support them in how they want their work to be shared.

Conclusion

Library publishing programs are not immune to the ethical considerations that AI poses. Authors should not be discouraged from using AI as a tool for editing or organization. Having an AI disclosure statement as part of an OER upholds a spirit of transparency in publishing. But the more difficult questions librarians are facing now is how to support openness while recognizing authors’ rights. Faculty authors have an obligation to support student learning, but it remains to be seen if AI is entitled to the same consideration.

Reference

Weaver, K. (2024). The Artificial Intelligence Disclosure (AID) Framework: An Introduction. College & Research Libraries News, 85(10), 407. https://doi.org/10.5860/crln.85.10.407

About the Author

Melissa Chim is the Scholarly Communications Librarian at Excelsior University, where she manages the university’s scholarly publishing platform and institutional repository. She is a SPARC Open Education Leadership Fellow, a Society for Scholarly Publishing Fellow, and an ASAPbio Fellow and Resident for 2025–2026. Her work spans open access publishing, OER, Creative Commons licensing, and historical research.

Cite this article

Chim, M. (2026). AI and library publishing: A reflection. Society and AI. https://societyandai.org/perspectives/ai-library-publishing/

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