The Application of Artificial Intelligence for Reference Purposes in Academic Libraries

Abstract

Artificial intelligence has played an important role in reference services for academic libraries. This chapter reviews 40 journal articles published between 2000 and 2023. It reports that artificial intelligence technologies of machine learning, robots, and natural language processing have all played an important role in providing personalised services in information literacy, sentiment analysis, information retrieval and recommendations on library materials. In addition, the review reported an increased usage of ChatGPT among academics and reference librarians in academic libraries. The review generally showed a limited adoption of artificial intelligence for reference purposes in the developing world due to several limitations such as lack of knowledge and skills, lack of finance and limited infrastructure among these institutions.