by Ann Kaste
Quick Summary
Join Minnesota State University Mankato librarians Nat Gustafson-Sundell and Mark McCullough as they showcase several AI tools, including ChatGPT, ChatPDF, Consensus, and more. The focus of the session will be on potential student uses of the tools and related library initiatives.
Date: Friday, August 25, Noon CST
Cost: Free
Link to Register
Join us as we showcase several AI tools, including ChatGPT, ChatPDF, Consensus, and more. The focus of the session will be on potential student uses of the tools and related library initiatives. Librarians can help students learn how to use these tools responsibly and provide leadership on campus as AI is integrated into assignments. We’ll provide brief demonstrations of several tools. We’ll look at how to optimize results with prompt aids. We’ll briefly discuss the limits of ChatGPT as an information source and ask how librarians might integrate AI into information literacy instruction. We’ll summarize an article with ChatPDF and highlight related licensing and copyright concerns. We’ll glance at more advanced uses of Generative AI tools, including data analysis, notebooks, and more.
Our goal is to start conversations, as we all prepare to meet student needs related to AI right now. There are many possibilities. As an equity initiative, librarians could teach introductory workshops to help students get started. In these workshops, or in their subject-related teaching - librarians can highlight information literacy. For example, communicating how Generative AI compares to search engines and library discovery tools as an information source. Librarians should also move quickly and proactively to communicate any copyright or licensing concerns on campus. This will be an introductory session, aimed at constructive engagement with AI. The focus will be on practical demonstrations.
Please note that the contents of the presentation could change up to the time of the presentation as the tools evolve. Nat & Mark are also collaborating with the MNSU Center for Excellence in Teaching & Learning and IT Solutions to offer a session for returning faculty in mid-August, so they may revise based on that experience.
See Course Handout. (this will be an evolving draft until session) And yes, ChatGPT helped write parts of this session description, although any faults in this description belong to Nat alone.
Nat Gustafson-Sundell is a Collections Librarian at Minnesota State University, Mankato (MNSU). In his first career, he was the Treasurer of a software development company and later the Business Manager of a market research firm. At MNSU, in addition to licensing and acquisitions, he works with a Collection Management Technology team to develop powerful collection analysis tools. He started working with topic modeling and text analysis tools about fifteen years ago, leading to a few conference presentations. He started introducing AI topics to the MNSU Journal Review Committee several years ago, but he was taken by surprise when ChatGPT ‘blew up.’ He has since been working to catch up.
Mark McCullough will join this session as the chat manager. Mark led several meetings to explore ChatGPT within the MNSU library last year. If there’s interest in sessions like these, Mark will also offer a follow-up session to discuss several real-life examples pertaining to reference, instruction, librarian liaisonship, collection development, and OER. Mark began his career in academic libraries in 1990 and has worked at MNSU since 1997 where he has worked in government documents, reference, instruction, and is also involved with other services. He has coordinated the library’s virtual reference service since 2002. He caught the ChatGPT bug in the fall of 2022 and he has been exploring ways it might support reference, instruction, collection development, and the creation of OER resources.)
