AI + Libraries: Information Literacy, Instruction, & Reference

Generative AI is an impactful technology with burgeoning ethical, technical, and regulatory issues to solve. The Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights and the report Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Teaching and Learning provide some guidance. The AI evolution has already begun. Librarians have the information literacy expertise to guide educational communities to ethically incorporate AI into their work and personal lives. The emergence of AI is an opportunity to play a role in teaching students how to use, critique, and change AI-generated information. The question is to what extent librarians will participate in this evolution.

AI continues to expand its influence in academia, business, and culture. Libraries are not exempt from this. While many institutions fear AI disruption, libraries that leverage this new suite of tools will streamline daily tasks, enhance outreach efforts, and more. This article identifies some popular AI tools in the current landscape and explores how librarians can use them to serve foundational objectives.

In the year since ChatGPT brought AI mainstream, the technology landscape has exploded with apps and bots that do more than mimic human intelligence and hallucinate electric sheep. Gary Price is a leader in advocating for better AI tools for librarians, researchers, and students (check out his presentations at Charleston and CNI this fall)—so I asked him, what are his top AI tools?