By Jennifer Aston, Teacher-Librarian & Sandra Snooks, Learning Coordinator for Student Achievement, K-12, Thames Valley District School Board
This past year, a working group of elementary and secondary teachers and teacher-librarians, alongside learning coordinators in student achievement and Indigenous education participated in a series of professional learning sessions related to the implementation of a Decision-Making Tool for Resource Selection in the Thames Valley District School Board. The goal was to support teachers and teacher-librarians in using the tool to select high-quality, inclusive and relevant resources for students in K-12 school libraries and classrooms. During the process, the group was immersed in many thoughtful conversations and learning that included: culturally relevant and responsive pedagogy, examining bias in resources, and learning from Indigenous perspectives about the important distinctions between appreciation and appropriation.
The learning was rich and one activity during our final session stood out.
In the final session, the concept of speculative education was introduced. Speculative education is described by researchers Garcia and Mirra (2023) as an invitation to design for “just futures now.” Speculative approaches ask educators to imagine worlds beyond existing systems. Researchers assert that education must emerge as a space of collective dreaming and ethical world-building, particularly around equity and social justice.
The group used AI to assist in speculation by imagining “what if?” scenarios and crafting AI prompts. “What if?” scenarios nudge thinking beyond current realities as a way to consider new or different or more equitable possibilities. The group crafted prompts that focused on resource selection, equity implications, and the full implementation of the Decision-Making Tool.
Curiosity was piqued in at least one teacher-librarian who entered the following prompt into AI:
“You are a speculative futurist in education. Act as an expert in future education and school library design. Speculate on what an elementary school library will look like and how it will function in the year 2045. As a teacher-librarian, the Decision-Making Tool for Resource Selection supports teacher-librarians in selecting texts for students that offer representation, are culturally responsive and relevant, and texts that, in general, do no harm. Please structure your response into three clear sections: Physical Space, Technology and Tools, and The Role of the Teacher-Librarian. For each section, provide two main ideas and explain how they change the student learning experience.”
Here is what Artificial Intelligence (in this case, Claude) generated:
| The Elementary School Library in 2045: A Speculative Vision By 2045, the school library will have shed its identity as a “book room” almost entirely, evolving into what many teacher-librarians already call a learning commons — but supercharged by two decades of technological and pedagogical change. Here’s how I imagine it. 1. Physical Space Idea 1: Modular, Reconfigurable “Zones” Replace Fixed Stacks Instead of rows of stationary shelving, the library will be built around movable, lightweight furniture and shelving units on tracks or wheels, allowing the space to transform within minutes — from a quiet reading nook, to a maker-space, to a 60-student assembly hall, to small pods for collaborative inquiry. Physical book collections will be smaller and more curated (fewer, better-chosen titles) since digital and print exist in balance, freeing floor space for flexible use. Impact on learning: Students experience the library as a responsive environment rather than a static room. A single space can support a read-aloud circle in the morning, a robotics build in the afternoon, and a student-led podcast recording after school — teaching children that spaces (and knowledge itself) can be shaped to fit a purpose, not the other way around. Idea 2: Sensory-Adaptive and Culturally Reflective Design Lighting, acoustics, and even scent/temperature zones will be adjustable to support neurodivergent learners and varied sensory needs (a direct extension of UDL principles). Simultaneously, the physical decor — art, signage, furniture styles, even the languages visible on the walls — will reflect the cultural makeup of the school community rather than a generic, one-size-fits-all aesthetic, curated using the same equity lens as the book collection itself. Impact on learning: Every student, regardless of neurotype or cultural background, finds a physical “way in” to the space. Children see themselves reflected in the environment, which research already links to stronger engagement and belonging — this becomes architecturally embedded rather than an afterthought. 2. Technology and Tools Idea 1: AI-Assisted (but Human-Curated) Discovery Systems Catalog search will move beyond keyword lookup into conversational, adaptive discovery tools — a student might say “I want a book about a girl who feels different from her family” and get a shortlist. Critically, the underlying recommendation engine will be trained and continually audited using something like the Decision-Making Tool for Resource Selection, so AI suggestions are still filtered through human judgment about representation, cultural responsiveness, and harm — the teacher-librarian sets the values the algorithm operates within, not the reverse. Impact on learning: Students get faster, more personalized pathways into texts, but they also implicitly learn that technology should serve human, equity-centered values rather than blindly optimizing for engagement or popularity — a critical digital-literacy lesson lived out through everyday library use. Idea 2: Immersive and Multimodal Creation Tools Alongside books, the library will house AR/VR stations, 3D printers, podcasting booths, and simple AI co-creation tools that let students produce — not just consume — media: illustrating and “publishing” their own picture books, building historical scenes in AR, or narrating multilingual audiobooks. These tools will be woven into the collection itself, with student-created works added to the local library catalog alongside professionally published texts. Impact on learning: Literacy expands from reading and writing to multimodal authorship. Students experience themselves as creators and contributors to the collection, not just consumers of it — reinforcing that knowledge and story are things they can make, not just receive. 3. The Role of the Teacher-Librarian Idea 1: Ethical Curator and “Algorithm Auditor” As AI tools mediate more of what students discover, the teacher-librarian’s core selection work — exemplified by tools like the Decision-Making Tool for Resource Selection — becomes more essential, not less. Their role expands to auditing algorithmic recommendations for bias, gaps in representation, and cultural harm, essentially doing for AI-curated content what they’ve always done for physical collections: vetting for authenticity, accuracy, and respectful representation. Impact on learning: Students are protected from the invisible biases embedded in AI systems and are guided toward diverse, affirming texts even as discovery becomes automated. The teacher-librarian becomes a visible model of critical evaluation, which students absorb as a transferable skill. Idea 2: Facilitator of Inquiry and Human Connection With information retrieval increasingly automated, the teacher-librarian’s value shifts toward guiding the process of inquiry — teaching students how to ask good questions, evaluate sources (human and AI-generated), collaborate, and reflect — and toward being a consistent human relationship in an increasingly tech-mediated school day. They become less “keeper of books” and more “designer of learning experiences” and social-emotional anchor. Impact on learning: Students gain not just content but metacognitive and relational skills — how to think, question, and connect with others — which remain irreplaceable even as information access becomes trivially easy. The library becomes less about what students can find and more about who helps them make sense of it. In short: the 2045 elementary library will be less a repository and more a living, responsive ecosystem — physically adaptive, technologically augmented but human-governed, and centered on a teacher-librarian whose expertise in equitable resource selection (embodied in tools like the Decision-Making Tool) becomes the ethical backbone holding the whole system together. |
What was generated wasn’t a prediction, as much as a conversation starter. Key takeaways and reflections on this speculative process are outlined below:
These AI generated ideas felt ambitious yet surprisingly achievable. The physical space outlined with curved lines and flexible pieces that can be moved for different purposes is one of dreams. The reality is that school budgets are tight right now and most libraries are not getting a redesign any time soon. Perhaps, this is less of a one-time renovation and needs to be seen as more of a gradual shift. As worn-out couches and clunky, immovable shelving reach the end of their life, they get replaced with pieces that have curves, flexible pieces and wheels. Having a vision is a first step. What could I draft or sketch out?
Many school libraries already include their student’s cultures in the physical space. Currently, many school libraries feature multilingual sections and offer bins and displays reflecting different cultural or religious celebrations and significant events pertaining to their school’s population. But how could this go further and what could students create towards developing this vision? Students could design artwork, write bilingual signage, and contribute more to what gets displayed. The idea of the architecture of the space becoming something that the community authors together, not something that is delivered to them is a powerful idea that could start now.
The section that highlights students who are using the library catalogue feels like the ultimate vision. It is not too difficult to imagine an online tool could have something like a Decision-Making Tool for Resource Selection built right into its backend, so every recommendation is automatically filtered or connected for representation, cultural responsiveness, and harm before it ever reaches a student. Hopefully there is a software company out there working on this right now. The real goal goes even further: a tool that connects to pieces of a student’s own identity, or to a school district’s equity and selection guides, to select the most perfect, safe and tailored resource(s) for that student’s intended purpose. But I wonder if this tool could do this as well as a Teacher-Librarian or Library Worker?
Many libraries do have the capability for students to create media; from green screen rooms to recording spaces and some even have podcasting equipment. Most of the time it is used for projects or to demonstrate learning. But what could students create and contribute to the library for others to consume? How could a teacher-librarian curate this? What could students at your school publish for others to consume?
If we remove the futuristic technology and look beneath the surface of the AI generated response, many of the themes are already familiar: flexible learning spaces, student agency, inquiry, collaboration, safety and wellness, information literacy, and ethical technology use. These are not ideas reserved for 2045! They are aspirations many teacher-librarians are already working toward.
At a time when teacher-librarian positions continue to be reduced, whether through shrinking allocations, the loss of library technicians, or the elimination of school libraries altogether, it can be difficult to look beyond simply preserving what remains. The future of school libraries is in peril, sadly, at a time when the value of school libraries has never been more clear. School libraries have a wide and significant impact on students, staff, and school communities every day. Advocating for the school library and the teacher-librarian role is a constant and crucial endeavour, it seems. Discouragement comes from the reality that sometimes decisions about school libraries, including the future of school libraries, are not in the hands of teacher-librarians. It is more important than ever to speculate and imagine what school libraries could become.
Speculation is an act of advocacy.
In imagining what school libraries could become, a vision is crafted that is worth working toward and worth protecting. AI does not reveal the future. Rather, it prompts thinking and reflection on the future we can help create. AI driven speculation is empowering, if we use it to take actual next steps.
Here’s your challenge:
Take the prompt above and adapt it for your own school, your own library, your own role and your own students.
What possibilities emerge? What surprises you?
And, perhaps most importantly: What can you begin doing today to make that future just a little more possible?
Want to have even more fun? Ask AI to generate a narrative for you about what the space feels like, looks like and sounds like…
| Walking Into the 2045 Library You step through the doorway and the first thing you notice is… |
References:
Garcia, A., & Mirra, N. (2023). Other suns: Designing for racial equity through speculative education. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 32(1), 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/10508406.2023.2166764