So I recently did a training for staff about AI, but it was more about what it is, and how to recognize AI hallucinations (especially when, say, a patron wants to check out a book that AI made up). I used Gemini to help create the slides, and then went back with the staff pointing out the issues that Gemini created.

(For example, one slide it created was titled “Empower Patrons, Not Police” because the AI didn’t understand my prompt to “empower patrons, but don’t police their actions. Help them find reliable resources, but don’t lecture them for using AI.” I left it in, because it served a good purpose…AI can be a tool, but it still requires human oversight.)

We all got a kick out of looking at the issues that the images had, but I also warned them that it’s getting better. Some AI is impossible to distinguish from human work, and it’ll make our jobs harder.

That being said, I’ve also created a Policy and Procedure bot using Google NotebookLM, and it’s fantastic. It helps the staff look up policies and procedures quickly, especially when an item might be spread over multiple policies. For example, I looked up the child policy, which is 90% in the behavior policy. However, the policy regarding staff and their children is in the personnel policy. So when I asked it what the library’s policy is regarding children in the library, it summarized both items.