How Can Libraries Bridge Heritage and Community Memory in the AI Era? A 5A Framework

Abstract

Artificial intelligence is reshaping how cultural heritage is digitized, organized, retrieved, interpreted, and reused, while also raising concerns about weakened cultural context, algorithmic bias, limited community representation, and long-term preservation. Using an interpretive multiple-case study, this article examines four Chinese initiatives: the National Library of China’s China Memory Project, Shanghai Library’s genealogy services, the digitization of ethnic minority classics in Guangxi, and the Digital Dunhuang Open Materials Library. It proposes a 5A framework comprising Access, Awareness, Agency, Accountability, and Afterlife. Access enables cultural resources to enter the public knowledge sphere; Awareness supports contextualized understanding; Agency determines whether communities can participate in interpretation and reproduction; Accountability governs collection, algorithmic processing, access, and reuse; and Afterlife depends on preservation, provenance tracking, rights management, and sustained use. The cases reveal a distinctive pathway centered on institutional preservation, platform development, low-resource script processing, and tiered openness, but also expose gaps in community co-governance, algorithmic transparency, and user-impact evaluation. The framework reframes multicultural literacy as a shared governance capacity involving libraries, communities, and technical systems, offering an analytical tool for AI-enabled heritage projects and cross-national comparison.