As we increasingly incorporate ChatGPT into the work we do in and for libraries, we are in the early stages of exploring how that artificial intelligence tool can help us in our efforts as advocates for libraries and the communities they serve. Some aspects are obvious: ChatGPT can quickly provide first drafts of materials (e.g., pitches, social media posts, and training) we use for advocacy, and it can help us identify resources supporting library advocacy. Some challenges are equally obvious, including its proclivity to “hallucinate”--simply make things up.

Join us for this highly interactive 90-minute online session exploring the basics of ChatGPT; how it might help us in advocacy; how we can use it in designing workshops like this one for our colleagues in advocacy; and how we might address some of the challenges ChatGPT creates for us.

Goal:

By the end of this session, you will be able to:

• Identify and describe at least three ways you can effectively incorporate ChatGPT into your advocacy work
• Describe and work with some of the challenges posed by the use of ChatGPT
• Cite at least three resources you can use to further your exploration of ChatGPT in advocacy

Session Facilitator:  

Paul Signorelli, CLA Library Advocacy Training Project Manager and author of Change the World Using Social Media (Rowman & Littlefield, 2021), has been exploring the use of artificial intelligence in training-teaching-learning for more than half a decade. He recently helped design and co-facilitate #etmooc2, the Educational Technology & Media massive open online course that explored artificial intelligence in lifelong learning.

About the Ursula Meyer Advocacy Fund Training Series

This program is part of an ongoing series of monthly online sessions organized offered through the Ursula Meyer Advocacy Fund Training Series; sessions are generally held online on the second Wednesday of each month, beginning at 10 am PT. The series honors the memory of Ursula Meyer, 1977-78 CLA President, California Library Hall of Fame inductee, longtime director of the Stockton-San Joaquin Public Library, and fierce advocate for library services and intellectual freedom. The Ursula Meyer Fund was established to provide for the training of librarians in all stages of their careers, and library supporters, in political advocacy and political action, in honor of Ursula’s belief that librarians need effective political skills to advocate for library support at all levels of government. Archived recordings of previous sessions are available on the California Library Association YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/@californialibraryassociati2705/videos.