The Full SLAAIT

As back to school season is upon us, and election season is right around the corner, AI's appearance in our everyday lives continues to increase. Beginning with this issue, look for a practical weekly prompt that you can employ with your library patrons to experiment with AI tools.

New generative AI tools continue to be released. Here's a few roundups of AI tools that may be worth a look.

The Massachusetts Library System has curated a large list of different AI tools.

Forbes gives a rundown of 5 different AI tools for educators (Magic Schools, Poe, Chat for Schools, Magic Media in Canva, and Udio).

IFLA has created a nice guide to generative AI for librarians.

Northwestern University's Libraries created this guide to AI usage for research.

For library patrons:

Use a generative AI tool to write a song, generate a list of book recommendations, create a picture, and/or create some kind of a list about the best and worst aspects of students starting back to school. After generating this new content, check it for accuracy and modify it as needed.

For librarians:

Use ChatGPT to create a list of books that address the topic of going back to school to use for a display, or ask it for programming recommendations with a back to school theme for patrons of multiple targeted age ranges.

Last week, Pottsboro Library Director Dianne Connery led a great seminar where she discussed the use of AI to analyze her ILS data. She has now proposed leading an interactive workshop for librarians! This is tentatively planned for the end of the month, and would entail working with participants first using sample data, and then using participants' own clean ILS data. More details to follow next week.

Several more state libraries have joined as SLAAIT participants over the summer, including California, Utah, and Virginia. Thank you all existing members for your participation, and welcome to our newest members.

X, formerly known as Twitter, has a new AI image generator.

Special issue of magazine Against the Grain focuses on AI in libraries.

Commentary on California's AI legislation from Tech Crunch.

Read this commentary on AI's ability to be humorous, courtesy of the BBC.