For the past year or so, we have been using the term “Librarianship of AI” to describe an emerging practice and guiding framework for sense making in the AI realm via the lens of librarianship. We define Librarianship of AI as “the study of models, their implementation, usage and behavior as a way of helping users make informed decisions and empowering them to use AI responsibly.”
In order to lower the barrier to entry for librarians and others to understand AI in their particular domain, we are building and evaluating AI tools, and also working to articulate how we apply techniques and outlooks common in the library and literacy world. If AI literacy is part of information literacy, then it’s essential to think about how library principles can be translated into a new domain. This looks like helping users think through questions like: “how did this AI tool arrive at its search results?,” and helping users go from thinking about generative AI as merely a tool, to thinking about AI as a subject worthy of investigation in its own right. And more broadly, exploring how AI might change how we communicate, learn, and make sense of the world.
Tools like WARC-GPT allow librarians and others to understand AI in their particular domain, and empower them to form their own opinions and frameworks for thinking about AI and new ways to access knowledge for their communities.