Unavoidable, use of AI to improve library services

2023-10-19 05:28:54

Unavoidable, use of AI to improve library services

• It is essential to analyze its scope, challenges, opportunities and risks, considered Patricia Dávila Aranda

• The mission of libraries is to facilitate access and use of information in a future that is perceived as challenging, indicated Elsa Margarita Ramírez Leyva.

When inaugurating the work of the XX International Conference on University Libraries, with the title The potential of artificial intelligence and emerging technologies in library and information processes and services, he explained:

Library science professionals have to evaluate, discuss and reflect on the challenges involved in the use of AI with its great ethical, technical and social challenges, while still warning of the risks.

It is necessary, he said, to update knowledge, develop new capabilities and strengthen those acquired to recognize its positive and negative impacts, by promoting a culture of innovation and collaboration among libraries.

“This leads us to analyze, investigate and understand its scope, its challenges, its opportunities, but also its risks, in order to take advantage of its potential to continue innovating in education, research, the dissemination of culture and, from then, in the daily work carried out in the different university libraries,” he noted.

He insisted on the importance of reviewing how it will be legislated and applied in the centers of access, management, dissemination and scientific, academic and cultural information; What will be its usefulness in spaces conducive to reading, study, learning, innovation and socialization.

In line with this trend, he stressed, several groups of academics and professionals in different sectors of UNAM and other universities have explored its virtues and problems to promote and improve its use in various institutional activities.

In this sense, Dávila Aranda highlighted the creation of a working group on generative artificial intelligence and education, chaired by the Coordination of the Open University, Educational Innovation and Distance Education of the UNAM, made up of specialists focused on the application of said technology in educational spaces.

As part of the initiatives promoted, he continued, work is being done on the implementation of face-to-face and online courses for teacher training, on the delivery of workshops on various aspects of generative artificial intelligence, in addition to the development of educational materials, and general guidelines. of its use for teachers and students.

“Having a regulatory framework is essential so that we all know what can be done, to what extent we can use this tool and where we move to a line that is no longer appropriate. We have to create a learning community on artificial intelligence and define lines of research in the different areas of knowledge that we have in universities,” he said.

Dávila Aranda stated: since the library community contributes significantly to the formation of user communities through the development of their informative, digital and ethical capacities, it is necessary to promote the correct use of information, identify erroneous or false content.

We must take advantage of the information generated with artificial intelligence for learning, in order to acquire new experiences and knowledge and, of course, innovate. Libraries have to keep innovating all the time, he noted.

As university students, the goals and commitments include: the creation of spaces dedicated to the review and consultation of digital collections in all academic entities; promotion and efficient access to electronic resources, as well as the corresponding evaluation and adjustment of the functions that these facilities must have, in order to ensure that they are perfectly aligned to the changing needs of our community, she emphasized.

In turn, the general director of Libraries and Digital Information Services, Elsa Margarita Ramírez Leyva, highlighted that the new challenge represented by AI and emerging technologies opens opportunities to continue with the necessary modernization of functions in an effective and quality manner in these spaces of knowledge.

The mission, he clarified, is to facilitate access and use of information in a future that is perceived as challenging, especially now that it is said that numerous professions will be replaced with AI.

“In libraries we are committed to continuing to support our communities so that they can continue their training, take on new professions, develop informational, digital and ethical capacities, so that they are able to use technology and manage large amounts of information,” accurate.

The work of the 20th International Conference on University Libraries began with the keynote conference The future of academic library support services: Are we still at the center of all the things that are taking a different form through Artificial Intelligence? , taught by Professor Lynn Kleinveldt, from the University of the Fraser Valley, Canada.

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