Developing a foundation for the informational needs of generative AI users through the means of established interdisciplinary relationships

Abstract

University faculty immediately had many questions and concerns in response to the public proliferation of generative artificial intelligence programs leveraging large language models to generate complex text responses to simple prompts. Librarians at the University of South Florida (USF) pooled their skills, existing relationships with faculty and professional staff across campus to provide information that answered common questions raised by those faculty on generative artificial intelligence usage within research related topics. Faculty concern regarding the worry of plagiarism, how to instruct students to use the new tools and how to discern the reliability of information generated by artificial intelligence tools were placed at the forefront. By augmenting existing tutorials and instruction sessions, and creating a new information resource, the library was able to build a timely foundation to support future efforts to address the changing information needs of faculty and students using generative artificial intelligence programs and tools.