From Fragmentation to Verification: Librarians as Infrastructure for Trust in AI-Mediated Post-Conflict Information Ecosystems

Abstract

The reconstruction of reliable biographical and contextual narratives in AI-mediated information environments presents significant challenges in post-conflict societies. Focusing on Colombia’s post-conflict period (2016–present), this study examines how the digital memory of assassinated social leaders is assembled across fragmented journalistic archives, institutional records, and social media traces. Using digital ethnography and structured web-based information retrieval, it identifies documentation gaps and biases that are further amplified by AI-generated incomplete or unverifiable references, creating a “verification gap.” The study proposes an analytical framework and geospatial visualization to support contextualized verification and argues for repositioning libraries as critical verification infrastructure through enhanced metadata, provenance practices, AI literacy, and verification workflows.

Keywords: AI-mediated information environments; Verification infrastructure; Digital memory; post-conflict studies; Information literacy; Metadata; Provenance; Libraries and archives; Knowledge organization; Colombia