A three-year research project, funded through a grant from the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS), has been making progress on examining how libraries can help their communities better understand artificial intelligence (AI). IMLS funding was signed into law on Tuesday by President Trump as part of the Labor, HHS, Education Appropriations Bill after the administration’s attempts to defund the agency last year.

Led by a partnership between the Urban Libraries Council (ULC) and the State University of New York at Albany’s Center for Technology in Government (CTG UAlbany), four public libraries—Frisco Public Library (FPL), TX; Palo Alto City Library (PACL), CA; Queens Public Library (QPL), NY; and Schaumburg Township District Library (STDL), IL—have been working to address three questions, according to the project:

• What role may public libraries play in increasing knowledge about AI in the community?
• How may public libraries foster inclusive civic engagement in AI initiatives?
• What are the opportunities, threats, benefits, and challenges of public libraries leading inclusive civic engagement in AI initiatives?

Last year, in conjunction with ULC and CTG UAlbany, PACL, QPL, and STDL each published white papers detailing early findings from environmental scans. All three libraries view AI literacy as a new component of digital literacy and are offering classes and workshops to help patrons learn and use the technology.

“We have found that public libraries are slowly starting to explore programs and services about AI targeted to their communities and their patrons,” Dr. Mila Gascó-Hernandez, research director for CTG UAlbany, told LJ.

However, all three libraries have also reported challenges with the pace of AI development and having staff prepared to teach courses and offer patrons help. Even PACL, in the heart of Silicon Valley, noted in its white paper that “the library has been fortunate in having staff members with advanced technical skills that allow them to code for robots and offer other AI programs. However, the staff shared that they must keep investing in learning new skills to offer these AI programs. In addition, the limited resources also bring the challenge of balancing different programs,” since the library staff have many other program topics to cover as well. “Balancing the needs of the community with the available resources is not always easy,” their report notes.

The libraries also noted that civic engagement initiatives involving AI were in the developmental stages.

“We have divided public engagement into three stages,” Gascó-Hernandez said. “The first one is about awareness, the second one is about training, and the third one would be about engaging with [AI] initiatives. What we see is that public libraries are very good at the…work that they’re doing focused on the two first stages. But it seems that there is still a need to go beyond those programs, beyond those training activities, and actually bring together different stakeholders within their communities. We do believe that they can still play this role, because they have already played it in the past. But around AI, this is something that we are not seeing yet.”

STDL has been offering lectures and recurring programs on generative AI including an introductory course on ChatGPT as part of its technology learning series. Offered monthly in STDL’s central library, the course begins with a presentation on what ChatGPT is, how it can be used, and challenges related to AI. Instructors demo the tool while getting feedback from the audience and asking participants to suggest prompts. Following that, discussions can range from the current reliability of information generated by AI to the copyright issues around AI content. Separately, STDL has offered courses on practical applications of AI, such as a “LinkedIn Profile with ChatGPT and Canva” lecture, which helped participants design LinkedIn banners with Canva and craft more impactful profile descriptions using ChatGPT.

QPL offers “We Are AI,” a five-week, in-person course on AI and its applications. Launched in 2022, the course has its roots in a 2018 New York City task force project to examine and make recommendations on the use of automated decision-making systems in city government. QPL was a collaborator on the task force and hosted public hearings to gather comments and local perspectives on AI systems. “During this process, library staff acknowledged the increasing demand for information about AI and its applications. As a result, in partnership with the Center for Responsible AI at New York University’s Tandon School of Engineering and Peer-to-Peer University (P2PU), the ‘We Are AI’ course was born to empower community members to understand and have a voice in the development and implementation of AI, enabling them to critically evaluate the use of AI by organizations and, in particular, by government agencies,” the library’s report states. The library also offers several other in-person and online AI courses ranging from introductory lectures to robotics programs and workshops on generative AI tools. “The offerings on AI are growing in alignment with the increasing interests and demands from patrons, and library staff are starting to design more practice-oriented courses that assist their patrons in responding to the quick development of AI.”

And PACL has been working with robots to raise awareness of AI. In 2017, the library unveiled Dewey, a humanoid robot that utilizes machine learning and natural language processing to simulate human-like interactions and “interact with patrons by answering questions and providing information using application programming interfaces (APIs), such as The New York Times Best-Seller List and library event APIs,” according to the library’s report. In addition, PACL has hosted seminars such as “AI in Higher Education” with Dr. Anthony Chow, director of the School of Information at San José State University. The library has also created workshops for Palo Alto City staff and the Palo Alto Art Center to demonstrate practical applications and address potential concerns around AI, and has hosted introductory AI presentations at local senior centers as part of ongoing digital literacy programming. And PACL has offered an AI Storytelling Workshop for teens and adults, which uses free AI tools including ChatGPT, Stable Diffusion, and ElevenLabs to demonstrate how these tools can be used to generate and refine stories and create videos, providing “insights into the potential benefits of AI technologies, as well as the challenges they pose to society.”

The white papers note that library AI programs offer their communities a way to explore this increasingly ubiquitous technology without commercial pressure or misinformation. However, programs cost time and money, including software licenses and hardware infrastructure. Given the rapid, recent evolution of AI, even preparing workshops on free AI tools requires staff to spend time keeping up with recent developments and new platforms. Partnerships with local experts, universities, civic groups, and schools can help, although cultivating those partnerships takes time as well.

In addition to FPL’s upcoming report, the project aims to also generate an overall best practices report and practitioners guide to help public libraries develop their own AI programs.