AI-Driven Empathy Engines for Digital Libraries: Advancing Human-Centered Knowledge Access through Ethical and Cultural Frameworks

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6239-618-0_5How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Libraries and AI; Engines of Empathy; Computing Affective; Ethics and AI; Humanities in Digital World

Abstract

This paper explores the opportunity for AI-based empathy engines to reinvent user experiences in digital libraries, thereby tackling the urgent issue of balancing automation with human-centric knowledge access. While AI has vastly expanded the boundaries of personalisation in library services, there is not much discussion on how its potential for empathy, cultural respect, and ethical conduct can be supported. Hence, the study aims to develop and test models for incorporating emotional intelligence in AI systems within digital library environment.

Utilizing a mixed-method approach, the project combines computational linguistics, affective computing and humanities-informed evaluation to create prototype empathy engines. These prototypes (built on natural language processing and sentiment analysis) will be developed inspired by user-centred design principles. Cross-cultural user studies will measure engagement, inclusivity and trust, with ethical assessments to cover the privacy, algorithm bias, and cultural representation aspects using a range of established AI ethics frameworks. Preliminary results are expected to indicate that human-centric AI enhances user experience, inclusivity and knowledge retention while minimizing the feelings of estrangement inherent in automation.

However, questions of bias in data capture and risk of cultural bias still emerge - This is where the emphasis on governance mechanisms and strong oversight are vital. This paper makes a novel contribution to the library AI literature by analyzing emotional intelligence in the library space: replacing more transactional recommendation engines with artificially empathetic and context-aware systems. It has theoretical arguments to make, too — it makes those by challenging the more utilitarian narratives around automation — but it also offers practical blueprints for achieving global scalability. Lastly, the exploration provides libraries and policy-makers with recommendations that can be followed for ensuring ethical and human-centered development of AI in order to ensure sustainable access to knowledge for all in Education 4.0.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - S. Henry Kishore
AU  - J. Jacintha Maria Florence
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/03/16
TI  - AI-Driven Empathy Engines for Digital Libraries: Advancing Human-Centered Knowledge Access through Ethical and Cultural Frameworks
BT  - Proceedings of 3rd International Conference on Library & Technology on “Artificial Intelligence and Humanities in Library and Education 4.0 (AIHLE 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 50
EP  - 77
SN  - 1951-6851
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6239-618-0_5
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6239-618-0_5
ID  - Kishore2026
ER  -