Adoption and ethical use of artificial intelligence (AI) for library service provision in universities in South-West, Nigeria
Adebola Aderemi OLATOYE, D. Agbenu, Opeyemi Olufunmilayo Bologun · Library and Information Perspectives and Research · 2025
The study investigated adoption and ethical use of AI for providing library services in university libraries in SouthWest, Nigeria. AI has the capacity to transform the traditional library to a smart library. The study set out to determine the extent to which university libraries adopt, and ethically use AI in service provision, as well as to ascertain the challenges encountered in adopting and ethically using AI. The study adopted the quantitative descriptive survey research method; having a study population of 496, and a sample size of 109 librarians that were selected purposively, the study analysed the data gotten from the use of questionnaire by descriptive statistical tools of tables, frequencies, and mean values. The findings showed that there is a very high extent of adoption of AI by university libraries in South-West, Nigeria for library service provision; there is a high extent of ethical use of AI for library service provision by university libraries in South-West, Nigeria; and the challenges to the adoption and ethical use of AI for library service provision are lack of technical expertise, poor internet connectivity, and data privacy and security concerns. The study concluded that the adoption and ethical utilisation of AI for library services will transform the libraries into smart libraries. The study recommended that librarians should be trained on the use of AI for library services, and there should be assistive technologies like steady internet connectivity for proper functioning of AI in library services.