Leveraging AI for Communications and Development Work in Academic Libraries

Abstract

This article explores how generative artificial intelligence can support more sustainable, strategic, and effective communications and development work in academic libraries. Drawing on the author’s experience navigating staffing losses, high-volume institutional communications, and the production of a major annual impact report, the article traces a personal journey from skepticism and resistance to the thoughtful integration of AI into professional practice. Through applications in campaign strategy, donor communications, annual giving, stewardship, event planning, visual concept development, and institutional storytelling, the author demonstrates how AI can reduce cognitive overload, accelerate production, and create greater capacity for strategic thinking without replacing human judgment. The article also examines the ethical and institutional responsibilities associated with AI use, including concerns around privacy, bias, intellectual property, data, and accountability. Ultimately, it argues that the most effective approach is one of harmony: AI can provide efficiency and scale, while humans remain responsible for empathy, ethics, relational intelligence, strategy, and institutional context.

Author Note:
This article was originally published by Information Today, Inc., in the July/August 2026 issue of Computers in Libraries magazine, v 46, no 4. It is reprinted with permission of the publisher.