Librarians in Addis Ababa spent three days studying how to use AI

Library workers gathered in Addis Ababa for three days on how artificial intelligence changes the job of keeping information findable and trustworthy. The UN Economic Commission for Africa reported on October 20, 2026, that the course, "Empowering African Libraries and Information Professionals for the AI Era," drew people from universities, libraries, and the commission itself.

Said Adejumobi, director of the commission's strategic planning division, opened the sessions by arguing for closer work between African institutions and expertise in the diaspora. Instructors from Solent University and Dublin City University covered metadata, resource discovery, data literacy, user-centered services, and practical uses of AI, along with planning for what library work looks like next.

The commission's account is plain about the other side of the tools. AI can speed search and discovery. It can also spread mistakes, bias, and shaky copyright claims. The course treated professional oversight, careful metadata, and strong catalogs as the counterweight. It was a training, not a new public library, and it did not report a count of records cleaned or questions answered.