Tag Archives: Librarians

Arts & Humanities, Books & Reading, Current Affairs, Libraries, Politics, Science & Health, Times They Are A-Changing, Web & Technology

Artificial Intelligence and the Research Paper: A Librarian’s Perspective – News | SMU Libraries

By: Jonathan McMichael, Undergraduate Success Librarian
Screenshot…

AI writing can mimic style, but it cannot mimic substance yet. The release of a powerful, free and easy-to-use large language model platform, Open AI’s ChatGPT, raises interesting questions about the future of writing in higher education.

As the Undergraduate Success Librarian, I have a unique perspective on generative AI, like ChatGPT, that I want to share along with some advice for instructors and students on adapting to AI’s presence in higher education.

What is ChatGPT?

How does it work? ChatGPT is an interface that allows you to interact with artificial intelligence through text inputs and responses. The AI on the other side of the interface is a language model called GPT-3. It produces human-like text by parsing and analyzing the massive corpus of text information (large language) it has been trained on to predict what is likely to come next in a string of words. This makes GPT-3 a type of Generative AI because it uses machine learning to generate new content based on a given set of input data. So, when you give ChatGPT a prompt like “describe losing your sock in the dryer in the style of the declaration of independence” it (in simplified terms) identifies relevant data within its large language dataset, notices patterns within that dataset and then generates a set of text that seems most like the things it identified.*

Editor’s Note: Source was Library Link of the Day
http://www.tk421.net/librarylink/  (archive, rss, subscribe options)

Source: Artificial Intelligence and the Research Paper: A Librarian’s Perspective – News

Arts & Humanities, Books & Reading, Current Affairs, Libraries, Memories & History, Politics, Science & Health

America’s culture war targets librarians – Coda Story

Librarians across the country are under threat as efforts to ban books about marginalized groups reach a fever pitch

By Erica Hellerstein, 21 December, 2022 

Daniella Zalcman

Amanda Jones awoke one morning in late July to the buzz of a text message. The air was balmy already — Louisiana summer weather. Jones, a middle school librarian with a slick brown bob, bright yellow glasses and the warm demeanor of someone who has mastered the art of talking to teenagers, squinted at her phone.

“You need to look at this,” a friend messaged her, with a link to a Facebook post. When she clicked on it, she began shaking and gasping for breath.

“My heart was racing. My blood pressure was through the roof,” she said. “I lay in bed for two solid days and cried so much my eyes swelled shut.”

It had all started that week at a public library board meeting. The meeting’s official agenda included a vote on whether the library should restrict access to several books that dealt with themes related to gender, sexuality and LGBTQ issues. Jones, who is also the president of the Louisiana Association of School Librarians, decided to weigh in.

Editor’s Note: Read more, see link below for original item...

Source: America’s culture war targets librarians – Coda Story

Arts & Humanities, Books & Reading, Current Affairs, Libraries, Memories & History, Politics, Religion & Spirit

‘Our mission is crucial’: meet the warrior librarians of Ukraine | Libraries | The Guardian

When Russia invaded Ukraine, a key part of its strategy was to destroy historic libraries in order to eradicate the Ukrainians’ sense of identity. But Putin hadn’t counted on the unbreakable spirit of the country’s librarians

By Stephen Marche, Sun 4 Dec 2022 03.00 EST

Left on the shelf: Russian troops deliberately shelled this library in Chernihiv, northern Ukraine, in April 2022. Photograph: Rex/Shutterstock

The morning that Russian bombs started falling on Kyiv, Oksana Bruy woke up worried about her laptop. Bruy is president of the Ukrainian Library Association and, the night before, she hadn’t quite finished a presentation on the new plans for the Kyiv Polytechnic Library, so she had left her computer open at work. That morning, the street outside her house filled with the gunfire of Ukrainian militias executing Russian agents. Missile strikes drove her into an underground car park with her daughter, Anna, and her cat, Tom. A few days, later she crept back into the huge empty library, 15,000sqft once filled with the quiet murmurings of readers. As she grabbed her laptop, the air raid siren sounded and she rushed to her car.

Source: ‘Our mission is crucial’: meet the warrior librarians of Ukraine | Libraries | The Guardian

Arts & Humanities, Books & Reading, Current Affairs, Libraries, Politics, Science & Health, Times They Are A-Changing

How libraries became refuges for people with mental illness.

By Anthony Aycock, Sept 22, 20225:50 AM

Photo illustration by Natalie Matthews-Ramo/Slate. Photo by Chanvre Québec on Unsplash and Pawel_B/iStock/Getty Images Plus.

Welcome to State of Mind, new section from Slate and Arizona State University dedicated to exploring mental health. Follow us on Twitter.

The Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges is often credited with saying that “Paradise is a library.” He must not have meant a downtown public library, circa 8 p.m. Such places, like most communal spheres, can be a challenge to oversee.

Some people treat them like a sort of roomless hotel, sleeping in chairs and bathing in restrooms. I used to watch a man who looked like the famous woodcut of Blackbeard the Pirate ride the escalator of my three-story library up, down, up, down. For hours. Carrying a duffel bag. He never bothered anyone, so our security officers left him alone. (Can’t say the same for the lady of the evening who was meeting clients in the stairwell.)

Then there are the questions from believers in Qanon. Election deniers. Sovereign citizens. The woman who ranted about the “news” that the World Health Organization was going to “force a vote to allow them to take over the U.S. and force a lockdown like China.” (If WHO had that kind of power, why bother with a vote?)

The man who asked me how he and a few of his buddies could get into the governor’s office to “remove him” over pandemic closures. (Would that all insurrectionists did such thorough research!) Declinism is the feeling that everything is getting harder, scarier, and weirder, and a lot of people seem to have it.

Work in a library, I want to tell them, and you’ll learn what weird is.

Source: https://slate.com/technology/2022/09/libraries-mental-health-support.html

Books & Reading, Current Affairs, Libraries, Memories & History, Politics

From book stacks to psychosis and food stamps, librarians confront new workplace | Salon.com

As America’s social safety net decays, librarians are feeling less safe doing their jobs

By Rachel Scheier, Published August 24, 2022 8:15AM (EDT)

Stack Of Books On Table In Library (Getty Images/Rachan Panya/EyeEm)

For nearly two decades, Lisa Dunseth loved her job at San Francisco’s main public library, particularly her final seven years in the rare books department.

But like many librarians, she saw plenty of chaos. Patrons racked by untreated mental illness or high on drugs sometimes spit on library staffers or overdosed in the bathrooms. She remembers a co-worker being punched in the face on his way back from a lunch break. One afternoon in 2017, a man jumped to his death from the library’s fifth-floor balcony.

Dunseth retired the following year at age 61, making an early exit from a nearly 40-year career.

“The public library should be a sanctuary for everyone,” she said. The problem was she and many of her colleagues no longer felt safe doing their jobs.

Via: Library Link of the Day, http://www.tk421.net/librarylink/  (archive, rss, subscribe options)

Editor’s Note: Read more, see link below for original item...

Source: https://www.salon.com/2022/08/24/from-book-stacks-to-psychosis-and-stamps-librarians-confront-a-new-workplace_partner/

Books & Reading, Current Affairs, Libraries, Politics, Web & Technology

Book ban efforts by conservative parents take aim at library apps | NBC News

Campaigns that started with criticizing school board members and librarians have turned their attention to tech companies such as OverDrive and Epic, which operated for years without drawing much controversy.

By David Ingram, May 12, 2022

Kim Hough watches as her 12-year-old son, Ethan, and her 9-year-old daughter, Emelia, browse book selections on the Epic app at their home in Melbourne, Fla., on May 6. Jacob M. Langston for NBC News

E-reader apps that became lifelines for students during the pandemic are now in the crossfire of a culture war raging over books in schools and public libraries.

In several states, apps and the companies that run them have been targeted by conservative parents who have pushed schools and public libraries to shut down their digital programs, which let users download and read books on their smartphones, tablets and laptops.

Some parents want the apps to be banned for their children or even for all students. And they’re getting results.

A school superintendent in a suburb of Nashville, Tennessee, pulled his system’s e-reader offline for a week last month, cutting access for 40,000 students, after a parent searched the Epic library available on her kindergartner’s laptop and found books supporting LGBTQ pride.

Source: Book ban efforts by conservative parents take aim at library apps