Hi all, your friendly neighborhood interest group chair here with a bit of a follow-up. I was fortunate to moderate a group discussion on the last day between some folks who've been working with AI in libraries for a few years now. While we did save some time at the end for audience questions, unsurprisingly there far more questions than we had time to answer. Fortunately a number of attendees submitted their questions online, and I thought it would be worth posting them here to strike up some discussion!
Feel free to give the questions a look over to see what's on folks' minds. If any of them resonate with you, drop a reply in this thread, and maybe copy/paste the question you're discussing at the top of your comment to keep it tidy.
- Mark: I'm wondering if the panelists or anyone in the audience has written and posted an AI policy that applies to staff and users of library service. I work at a public library and we have begun meeting as a 'Community of Practice" to begin learning about all the varieties of AI from ChatGPT to DALL-E. We have not written a policy yet and our current thinking is the policy may be folded into our "Acceptable Use Policy" that library cardholders agree to when they login to use the internet. Any feedback is appreciated.
- Rachel: Can you speak about the role of public libraries and AI?
- Kate: How do you deal with the environmental implications of AI with increasing climate change issues?
- Jennifer: Are any of you troubled by the energy demands of Gen AI or are we all assuming that over time it will become less energy intensive? Our students value sustainability but also convenience
- Katie: Have any of you done any user experience testing? Especially with reference chat services.
- Hng: Do you have a tips sheet or directions on using an example paper to upload and then using a students notes for a paper to insert to put it into the correct format
- Joanna: Does your library have any goals in your strategic plan regarding AI and what are they?
- Rachel: Can you provide examples of how you're integrating AI literacy into one-shot instruction sessions?
- DS: Why should you not enter your information in an AI tool?
- Paul: I work in a public library. We serve the general public. What's the best way to educate the regular people about AI?
- Katie: Do you have any concerns about the quality of information you are generating with AI?
- Katy: I know nothing about AI, and am a public facing librarian working with all age groups. What type of AI should I look into and learn about to best serve my community.
- Barbara: How do I start at my middle school library? I teach about credibility of resources. We were # 1 on using the Gale database in Southern region. How do I get students using AI wisely?
- Andy: How can we best teach the public to use AI in ways that bridge the digital divide?
- Steven: Is the information/course materials Trevor referenced for using AI in job/career search available to the public?
- Paige: At the college level and considering students about to go into the job field, what do you think is the most important thing for them to learn/know about AI?
- Lae'l: How do we ensure equity regarding access to AI tools as inevitably such technology will incur costs/memberships limiting who and what community has access. Creating an elite class who has access and how do we we ensure we don't become overly reliant on such tools? Also, who should be leading conversations on AI ethics?
- Stasha: What are your best practice suggestions around preventing AI supported plagiarism with student
- Patrick: For profit companies such as Facebook/meta & Google have shown that they can't be trusted to use personal data ethically (eg Cambridge Analytica). How can libraries, governments and users organize to demand and ensure that AI integration in library services is done ethically?
- Ed: How do you educate non tech patrons about AI or should we?
- Sophie: How concerned are you you about the environmental impact of the wide-spread use of AI by the general public?
- Paul: Is there a nonprofit organization or agency that specializes in educating the general public about AI? If so, our library would love to partner with them.
- Academic Librarian: Our students are using it to cheat. We are integrating AI into our courses to teach students to use it as a tool and not as an author for their papers. In my experience, students are going to take the easier softer way. What preventative measures do you suggest?
- Erin: We are fielding a lot of questions from researchers about using library collections in their LLMs as training data. We are currently working through policy for use of our local repository collections and dealing with vendors who are putting new restrictions into license agreements. There was no discussion of this among the panelists, so I'm curious as to whether others are being approached by researchers to use library collections in training their LLMs, and also most specifically for Michigan, I'm curious whether library data is included in the platform the institution has built.
- Tim: How do you see AI changing day-to-day operations for public library staff?
I'm starting with all of the questions in this one thread, but I'm also amenable to breaking them out into their own in case things get unwieldy.
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Peter Musser
Co-chair, ALA Core IG for Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in Libraries
Head, Library Services
ISKME
He/Him/His
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