Playaway has debuted the Launchpad Quest, a 21.5-inch touchscreen learning hub with up to 150 educational games, storybooks, activities, and more for children ages 3–10.

In this month's AI Watch column, the Libraries Lead podcast team discusses whether AI could be making us work more, not less; ChatGPT's testing of ads; and how AI is being used in crime investigations.

Today’s consumers expect speed and convenience. Self-service checkout stations, touch-screen kiosks, and mobile point-of-sale solutions empower people to take control of their shopping, dining, and entertainment experience. The same transformation is happening in public libraries. Here are some of the latest tech tools that are improving the library experience for patrons and staff.

Among the more than 100 pages of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, two paragraphs have had outsized influence on library services over the last 30 years. These paragraphs are the basis of the federal E-Rate program which, today, supports internet connectivity for about half of the nation’s public libraries.

Open data has become “strongly embedded into research practices” and FAIR (findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability) data principles are now widely recognized, with awareness almost tripling from 15.2 percent in 2018 to 40.6 percent recently, according to “The State of Open Data 2025: A Decade of Progress and Challenges,” a report published in January by Digital Science, Springer Nature, and Figshare. The percentage of researchers who responded that they had “never heard of FAIR” has fallen from almost 60 percent in 2018 to 20.4 percent in the 2025 survey.

As artificial intelligence tools become pervasive, public libraries may want to establish transparent guidelines for how they are used by staff.

Over the past year, I’ve found myself replacing my favorite conversation starter—what are you reading?—with a new question: How are you using AI?

A three-year research project, funded through a grant from the Institute for Museum and Library Services, has been making progress on examining how libraries can help their communities better understand artificial intelligence. Led by a partnership between the Urban Libraries Council and the State University of New York at Albany’s Center for Technology in Government, four public libraries—Frisco Public Library, TX, Palo Alto City Library, CA, Queens Public Library, NY, and Schaumburg Township District Library, IL, are involved.