RCL Blog - Research Guides and Class Pages at Dominican University

I am not an AI skeptic, necessarily. I see artificial intelligence making valuable contributions in the fields of research, the health sciences and towards more accessible design. I love technology and gadgets, and despite my feelings towards the large tech firms, I generally am still optimistic about what technology has and can do for us.

That said, I also see a trend of large (respectable?) organizations cramming AI into their products and services. A few interesting ones have stood out to me recently: Amazon's Rufus, and Reddit's Answers. I thought I would put both to the test and report back: Are these useful tools or more examples of the end of the AI hype cycle?

Disclaimer: Both of these features are currently in BETA so I am sure they will be improved or discontinued or more likely commodified at some point. Let's start with Rufus.

RUFUS

I noticed this a few weeks ago at the top left of Amazon's web page - a prominent place considering how people read the internet. After clicking on “Rufus” the following appeared on my screen:

About three months ago I searched for new work shirts, so I suppose the “Keep shopping” prompts make some sense. The fact that this is the top result is revealing. The “Compare options” suggestions were tangentially related to my previous searches but I am honestly not to sure why I would be asking Rufus to compare quilts and comforters. The suggestions in the “Learn before you buy” section was even stranger: but let's play along. I clicked “What does cocktail attire mean?” and was given the following LLM-like response:

And of course, underneath the explanation were links to various things I can buy (now that I know what cocktail attire is, of course…):

So a relatively boring rabbit hole and not too useful in my opinion, but Lets see how Rufus responds to an actual user prompt: “What is the best laptop”. When I first tried this out last week, I was honestly surprised to see a somewhat useful response about “things to consider” before buying a laptop (operating system, processor, storage, display etc.), and as I scrolled down further I saw advertisements for large laptop manufacturers. This time, it was just the adds for the largest computer brands, with the links to the products underneath. I was quite disappointed by this development.

Overall Rating: Could be somewhat useful, but in the end I do not trust the intentions or the long term stability of this product. I am also still wondering why I would ever be asking Rufus or Amazon what Cocktail Attire is. Not very fun. Not very useful.

Reddit Answers:

As far as I can tell Chat GPT, Claude, Perplexity, Google Overviews, and Deep Seek have all scraped Reddit to some extent to help generate their responses. Reddit obviously noticed this as well and decided to create a LLM (perhaps a medium language model?) that has been trained exclusively on Reddit posts and comments. Or as Reddit puts it, Answers is “a new way to get the information recommendations, discussion, and hot takes people are looking for - on any topic - from real conversations and communities across all of Reddit.” Hmm…

Having spent some time on Reddit, this sounded pretty interesting (and potentially horrifying…) so I wanted to test the guard rails. I started immediately with a rather loaded question: "Is Donald Trump corrupt?" I was surprised to get an actual answer which included a very Perplexity-like response that included a general overview of the topic including sections about: “Allegations of Corruption and Criminal Activity”, “Public Perception and Defense”, and “Concerns about Future Actions”.

It concluded with this: “The debate over whether Donald Trump is corrupt is complex and multifaceted, involving numerous allegations of illegal activities and concerns about his potential future actions. Opinions on Reddit reflect a wide range of perspectives, from staunch criticism to strong defense.” There were also links to reddit posts and conversations about this topic, recommended Subreddits where you can discuss this more, and related follow up questions. I thought that this was a fairly balanced response to an obviously contentious question.

My unrelated follow up (which is equally contentious in some corners) “Is Messi or Ronaldo the GOAT?”. I received an equally balanced and I would argue useful response. I think that this is perhaps a slight improvement over Reddit's current search engine, but it is also limiting the context of the information that users are seeing.

Overall Rating: Despite my low expectations, I actually found Reddit Answers to by useful and dare I say fun - especially for niche questions or content recommendations. That said, typing your questions directly into the regular OG Reddit search bar would often return many of the same results. Fun. Somewhat Useful.

If any of this is worth destroying the rainforest for - is another question for another day.

(Spoilers: It's not)

Recent Posts

Art Therapy: My Safest Place

This post was authored by undergraduate student Nafia Khan for Professor Christine Wilson's ENG 335 assignment, Writing as Social Action. It is part of a “Student Speaks” series on the RCL blog.When I get caught up in life's responsibilities, hobbies that are important to me like painting fall by the wayside. That's why it was refreshing to have a class solely focused on creating art and reconnecting with aspects of my “inner child.” That class was PSYC 247: Intro to Art Therapy.Intro to Art Therapy was one of my favorite classes taken at Dominican. Taught by Professor Joan Cantwell (MA DePaul University), it was a unique take on a college course. Not only did I experience art therapy firsthand and get a better understanding of what patients go through, the class became a safe place for me to become vulnerable and learn about myself. One class session particularly stands out in my mind. The topic was exploring our “inner child.” It was an unexpectedly difficult topic for me, and I remember avoiding my work that week. Just as therapy is most needed on the days you don't feel like going, I later recognized the importance of that session's material. Having never explored the concept before myself, I hadn't realized how difficult “inner child” work could be for a patient. Overall, the immersive approach of the class was challenging but insightful.Book cover of The Wiley Handbook of Art Therapy (2016). eBook can be accessed online at Rebecca Crown Library.Additionally, PSYC 247 provided space to discover things about myself beyond what I could get from everyday experiences. Every session we were assigned writing or discussions based on the art we had created. The week we discussed the “Inner Child” I created my favorite piece of the course (featured photo). The class helped me realize I struggle to find safe spaces for myself, and now that is a topic I discuss with my therapist. Where do I truly feel safe? In class, I reflected on my love for nature, and specifically water. Water in all forms – rain; oceans; lakes. So I painted a jellyfish and starfish. Instead of representing a specific place, these water creatures embody a state of mind: my safe place. That week I wrote in the journal: To be a jellyfish and float;To be a starfish and glide…In a sense, PSYC 247 became a safe place for me, too. It provided a break from my regular coursework in that, while it didn't feel like typical class, I was learning so much! I have even more respect for therapy clients than I did before, because therapy (of any kind) is not easy work. Book cover of Multicultural Family Art Therapy (2015) by Christine Kerr (ed.). eBook can be accessed through Rebecca Crown Library.The experiential learning and supportive attitude of my professor helped change the way I think about learning in general. I had found previous art classes difficult because of how critical teachers were of my art. So I told myself, “I love art too much to take a class for it. Taking a class will make me hate it." Nonetheless, Professor Cantwell's approach was different from my previous art teachers. She always encouraged my work, even when the output was different than our expectations. To this day, Art Therapy is one of my favorite classes I've taken. I went into it not expecting to feel as many emotions as I did. While I think everyone can benefit from art therapy, I understand the things that work for me might not work for everyone. However, if you enjoy creating art, learning about psychology, or could use a safe place to explore your inner world, PSYC 247 might be the place for you. It was for me.Cover photo by the author...

Scholarships & Ideas Expo: a Day of Glory

If you had no idea why your typical classes were not held yesterday, you missed out on an incredible event of research, scholarship, and overall passion for learning.On Wednesday, over 100 students presented posters on various projects related to their field of study. Many others took part in a lightning talk (ten minutes plus 5 minute Q&A), standard talk (20 minutes plus 5 minutes Q&A), or a panel of minimum four students (45 minute talk plus 10 minute Q&A). Students submitted a 200-word abstract about their project event while registering, and each project had at least one faculty advisor (all poster presentations are listed on this pdf).First Year Experience: Assessing Library Use and Library BehaviorsThe Instruction Interns at Rebecca Crown Library, of which I am one, devised a survey of first-year CRWS (Critical Reading, Writing and Speaking) students to assess students' self-reported knowledge and confidence about library usage. Completed by 49 students, the survey contained one quantitative, three Likert-scale, and two open-ended questions. Rewardingly, we found 73% of students reported feeling confident using the library's resources.Poster presented by Rebecca Crown Library's instruction interns (Vanessa Gonzalez, Claire Hubble, Joseph Moore) on Assessing Library Use and Research BehaviorsPersonally, this was an incredibly rewarding experience. Receiving honest responses from students, which ranged from “the librarians are always helpful" to “I'm too scared to ask for help,” was a powerful connection to the experiences I have had teaching about library resources during my time as an Instruction intern. While many students can find group projects daunting, there is joy in accomplishing something meaningful using a team effort. Overall, discovering one's strengths and weaknesses in a team setting is an invaluable professional skill.A Wide Range of Research at the SI ExpoFollowing our hour of poster presentation, I spent the next hour perusing posters in Parmer Hall's first floor. Knowing how much passion went into my group's project, I felt uniquely tied to a community of scholarship amidst these young professionals. The first poster I observed was at table 11, Luis Nieves' “Exploration of Music Therapy Effectiveness for Chronic Pain in Hospitalized Children.” Having thought a lot about the emotional power of healing in my personal journey, hearing Nieves speak about the importance of honoring young patients' humanity was inspiring. I next walked to table 6 where Rose Kennet spoke eloquently about "Politics, Religion, and Fandom: a Study of Overlapping Online Fan Communities." Having recently attended a seminar at the International Children's Book Fair in Bologna, Italy about fandom in children's literature, I was intrigued about this topic. Book cover of Learning to Collaborate, Collaborating to Learn by Janet Salmons (2019). eBook can be accessed online at Rebecca Crown Library.At Table 7, Katarzyna Zawislak's poster was titled “Beyond Just Fun and Games: An Overview of Sexualization in Play.” I had many questions for Zawislak about the way some toys for children are marketed using adult-like sexualized techniques. Last, I spoke with Liliana Matias and Brianna Perez on their impactful topic, “Building Bridges: Mentors’ Attunement to Mentees’ Experiences with Racism.” As a white person who has considered entering the field of children's librarianship, opportunities to become more racial sensitivity are incredibly valuable to me.There were many more fascinating projects I simply did not have time to explore. One was Nafia Khan and Kyle Jennette's “The Relationship Between Adverse Childhood Experiences, Neighborhood Resource Deprivation, and Learning and Memory Performance in Older Adults" at table 8, while another was Mo Malinowski's "Changing Notions of 'Family' and Estrangement."So many incredible topics and presenters – day of glory, indeed!Standard Talks: Using Adaptive Technologies in the 21st CenturyMy last stop was Parmer 113 to hear two 25-minute standard talks followed by Q&A. First, Honors Management Studies student Aldo Cervantez spoke about “Empowering Small Business: a Social Media Consulting Journey." Leveraging his passion for consulting, Cervantez built a Wix website to help a small business in Berwyn, IL grow their marketing outreach. The new site promotes the restaurant's eye-popping dishes and more effectively caters to a newly targeted customer demographic. Cervantez also helped overhaul the digital presence of an auto mechanic small business in Berwyn by utilizing an effective brand palette and highlighting the business's fascinating history of milk distribution.Book cover of Human Flourishing in a Technological World: a Theological Perspective by Jens Zimmerman (2023). eBook can be accessed online through Rebecca Crown Library.Last, multidisciplinary artist and archival student TJ Moaton led an emotionally impactful talk about the ethics of “death technology” in “The Tech Afterlife: the Ethics of End-of-Life Technology.”“How do you want to be alive? How do you want other people to be remembered when they die?” the presenter asked.Moaton discussed resources such as deathcare management software Plotbox, the cremation diamonds of EverDear, and memory preserving app Lalo. Afterward the audience offered several insightful comments and questions, as well as personal anecdotes regarding what the grieving process looks like in the 21st-century.The Scholarships & Ideas Expo is a wonderful event for inspiration, networking, and creative sharing among young professionals in the DU community. Check out information about the SI Expo and consider taking advantage of this amazing opportunity next spring.Featured photo by Megan Hoppe...

A Pickleball Club Origin Story

This post was authored by undergraduate student Sandra Magdaleno for Professor Christine Wilson's ENG 335 assignment, Writing as Social Action. It is part of a “Student Speaks” series on the RCL blog.During my freshman year at Dominican, I was convinced there was nothing to do on campus. I was from the South Side of Chicago stuck in a northwest suburb. I expected to be bored. The following summer, my boyfriend made me play pickleball with him. I hated it! It was hard and there was a lot of running back and forth. Maybe it’s because I didn't know how to play, or maybe it’s because he was way more competitive than I was, but I did not enjoy it. Book cover of Hobby Clubs: Sharing Your Interests by Betty Bolté. eBook can be accessed online from Rebecca Crown Library. When my sophomore year started, I made it my goal to make more friends on campus, but quickly realized I am not a very social person. I accepted an invitation to play pickleball with some people I had never met, figuring it would be a good way to meet new people. Even though I didn't get any better at playing during the year, it was so much more fun than it was in the summer. I played with these new friends two to three times a week (rain or shine -- and turns out it's hard to play in the rain!) for the entire first semester until the outdoor courts closed in mid-November. Sometimes we asked other people to play, but we rarely got an answer. And if we did, it was a “no sorry” or “can't.” Needless to say, it got boring playing with the same three all the time, but with the outdoor season coming to an end, we still wanted to play as much as we could. As four 19-year-old college students, we didn't (and don't) have the money for some type of gym membership. So we thought: “how can we keep playing, and for free?” Book cover of A to Z World Sports by Sibylla Putzi-Ortiz. Title can be accessed from Rebecca Crown Library.Dominican has a lot of clubs, but most seem to focus on majors or career paths and not something active. So why not try to start a pickleball club? We could get a place on campus to play indoors, maybe even get funding for the club to host events and get equipment. Best of all, we could get more people to play with. So we began to figure out how to start a club on campus. I always heard it’s not hard. All you need is three core members and an advisor. So we made a constitution, found an advisor, and recruited people who wanted to be part of the club. After submitting our paperwork to the Office of Student Involvement (OSI), it took about two weeks to get approved. Then it was official: DU had a pickleball club! Since creating the club, we have had four events in the Igini Sports Forum using equipment given to us by DU athletics. We have also put in a request to the Student Government Association (SGA) to receive funding for this year to get shirts for an end of the school year event we are planning. We have even had other clubs reach out to use to collaborate on events. Book cover of Play Pickleball: From the Local Court to the Pro Circuit by Sydney Steinaker. eBook can be accessed online from Rebecca Crown Library.Looking back, Dominican had plenty of clubs I could have joined my freshman year. However, I'm glad nothing grabbed my attention. Not only did it motivate me to make new friends, but we created something on campus other students could join in as well. It wasn't hard to form our own community on campus; it just took a little bit of determination (ok, and a bunch of emails to secure space, etc.). But it has been totally worth it.Now I get to play pickleball year-round and meet more people on campus who have similar interests as my friends and me. I'll see you on the court!...

The Endangerment of American Academic Freedom

This post was authored by Future Librarians and Archivists for Palestine, a committee of Dominican University's Information Science Student Association. As a student at an American University, it strikes me as essential that there is discussion surrounding the unlawful arrest and deportation of Mahmoud Khalil amongst the student body, staff, and faculty. Khalil, a recent graduate of Columbia University, was a student leader of the school’s pro-Palestinian protests that unfolded with international media attention this past year. Despite legally living within our country, with a green card and permanent citizen status, ICE entered his university-owned apartment, questioned, and then arrested him in early March. He has since been awaiting trial as prosecutors seek his deportation. Khalil’s wife, an eight-month pregnant American citizen, was also threatened with arrest. When questioned for the reasoning behind this arrest, a spokesperson from the Homeland of Security confirmed that the unlawful seizure of this individual was directly related to his political engagement while on his university’s campus, stating that the arrest was “in support of President Trump’s executive orders prohibiting anti-Semitism.” Since this arrest, there have been several other efforts in line with Donald Trump’s efforts to arrest and deport peaceful protestors with lawful residence throughout American college campuses. Rumeysa Ozturk, a doctoral student, was arrested in Massachusetts the same month. The incident, captured on video, shows masked ICE members surrounding and arresting the confused woman. “You want to take those masks off? Is this a kidnapping? Can I see some faces here? How do I know this is the police?" A bystander is heard asking in the video. In the Midwest, the University of Minnesota released a statement stating that one of their graduate students was arrested by ICE. The identity, status, and safety of this student remains unknown. Another Columbia University student, 21-year-old Yunseo Chung, was targeted by ICE. Chung, who moved to the U.S. at the age of 7 and holds permanent and lawful residence in the country, was the valedictorian of her high school, now finds herself involved in a legal battle with the Trump administration, fighting against her deportation. Chung’s lawsuit states that ICE agents searched for her at her college campus and her parents’ home. Much can be written about the unlawful and fascist nature of these actions by the Trump administration and ICE, which has operated against the American people without any pushback, checks, or limitations from any governmental level. The actions of these students clearly fall within the protection of the first amendment, and their targeted punishment from our government due to the expression of their political ideals in a peaceful manner is cause for concern for everyone. Notably, though, we wish to discuss the University’s cooperation with these arrests and attempted deportations. Not only did Columbia University allow for the NYPD to violently detain their students during the period of protest itself, their support for the government’s tyrannical campaign against these students has held steadfast. An effort that has been failing in their intended goal of preserving financial power; the Trump administration recently canceled 400 million in federal funding to the University, despite the institution’s cruelty to their own student body. Their response to the arrest of Khalil and this cancelation of funding was to cave to the demands of the Trump administration, promising the government sweeping retaliation against all pro-Palestinian support on campus. Despite this, the funding has yet to be returned to the University, and the institution is losing both their power and their soul. These actions are meant to strike fear in American Universities in the hopes of encouraging them to suppress the voices of their students; voices that, importantly, are in support of a vulnerable and endangered group of people as they suffer through an atrocity of imperial militaristic aggression. Although Dominican University has shown no indication of joining these efforts of punishment, the effect remains. The reverberations of these actions have stricken fear in students who wish to use their intellectual thought for the betterment of the world—actions that should be an encouragement for any valuable academic institution. We hope that as these events unfold around us, there is continued support for free-thought and expression within Rebecca Crown Library and Dominican University. Next Tuesday, on the 8th, FLAP (Future Librarians and Archivists for Palestine) will be hosting a guest speaker event with Laila Moustafa Hussien, a professor and librarian at the University of Illinois who specializes in cultural heritage preservation and North African and Middle Eastern Studies. We will be discussing the catastrophe that has occurred in Gaza and its implications for the Palestinian people and their cultural heritage. Please join us for this essential discussion, which will occur at Zoom at 6:00 P.M. The link can be found on ISSA or SAADUC’s EngageDU page. Citations: Horton, Adrian. 2025. “From Campus to Police State: A New Documentary Goes Inside the Columbia University Protests.” The Guardian, March 29, 2025. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/mar/29/the-encampments-film-columbia-university-student-protests. Kailath, Ryan. 2025. “Columbia Protest Documentary Narrated by Mahmoud Khalil Has U.S. Premiere Thursday.” Gothamist, March 26, 2025. https://gothamist.com/arts-entertainment/columbia-protest-documentary-narrated-by-mahmoud-khalil-has-us-premiere-thursdayKaste, Martin. 2025. “Masked Officers in Tufts Student Arrest Raise Fears Among Immigrants and Bystanders.” NPR, March 28, 2025. https://www.npr.org/2025/03/28/nx-s1-5342428/tufts-student-arrest-raises-questions-about-masked-ice-agents. Kelly Murray and Sabrina Souza. 2025. “Immigration Officials Silent After Another Graduate Student Detained –This Time, At The University of Minnesota.” CNN, March 28, 2025. University of Minnesota: Immigration officials silent after another graduate student detained | CNN Offenhartz, Jake. 2025. “ICE Arrests Palestinian Activist Mahmoud Khalil | AP News.” AP News. March 10, 2025. https://apnews.com/article/columbia-university-mahmoud-khalil-ice-15014bcbb921f21a9f704d5acdcae7a8. Speri, Alice. 2025. “‘Canary in the Coalmine of Totalitarianism’: How Columbia Went From a Home for Edward Said to a Punching Bag for Trump.” The Guardian, March 29, 2025. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/29/columbia-middle-east-department-trump-edward-said. The Guardian. 2025. “Columbia University Caves to Demands to Restore $400m From Trump Administration.” The Guardian, March 21, 2025. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/21/columbia-university-funding-trump-demands. The Virginian Pilot. 2025. “Former York County Valedictorian Fighting Deportation in Lawsuit Against Trump Administration.” The Virginian-Pilot, March 28, 2025. https://www.pilotonline.com/2025/03/28/former-york-county-student-fighting-deportation/./ ...

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