Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming research libraries across Canada, offering powerful tools to enhance teaching, learning, and research. AI is helping libraries address complex challenges and meet the evolving needs of researchers, educators, and students, in areas such as data analysis, resource discovery and personalized user services. As research libraries embrace these innovations, they are also playing a critical role in fostering ethical and inclusive approaches to AI, ensuring its use aligns with academic values and contributes to the advancement of knowledge. In 2024, CARL created a Visiting Program Officer position for AI and Library Services to advance the work in this area.

 

GenAI Primer

In 2023, CARL’s Advancing Teaching and Learning Committee developed Generative Artificial Intelligence: A Brief Primer for CARL Institutions. This document provides an overview of generative artificial intelligence and its implications for research libraries, focusing on how it differs from traditional AI and its potential to transform various library functions. It aims to equip library leaders with the critical understanding needed to navigate AI’s opportunities, risks, and campus-wide discussions on its applications.

Generative Artificial Intelligence: A Brief Primer for CARL Institutions (PDF)

 

GenAI Quickstart: Foundations for Faculty

On December 10, 2024, CARL hosted the webinar ‘There is No (A)I in Team’: Creating and Sharing Teaching & Learning Resources for AI Skills Development. The session highlighted the collaborative efforts of librarians from Concordia and McGill universities in creating GenAI Quickstart: Foundations for Faculty, a series of openly licensed micromodules designed to help faculty understand and navigate generative AI tools. Panelists Dianne Cmor, Megan Fitzgibbons, Katherine Hanz, Sandy Hervieux, and moderator Janice Kung, CARL VPO for AI and Library Services, discussed the origins, impact, and adaptability of these resources, emphasizing how institutions can customize them locally and the potential for developing similar shared tools in the future.

→ ‘There is No (A)I in Team’: Creating and Sharing Teaching & Learning Resources for AI Skills Development Recording (YouTube)

Access the GenAI Quickstart: Foundations for Faculty Modules

 

Past Groups

AI Task Group (2023-2024)

This group explored the implications of generative AI for teaching and learning in Canadian academic libraries and identified training and development needs to prepare for its evolving role in higher education.

Members

Sheril Hook (Chair), York University
Dianne Cmor, Concordia University
Karen Munro, Simon Fraser University
Dominique Lapierre, Université Laval
Mark Robertson, Toronto Metropolitan University
Helen Kula, McMaster University
Lesley Balcom, University of New Brunswick
Marc Comeau, Dalhousie University