We’ve recently added a new starter curriculum for AI to our Libraryskills.io platform – a space dedicated to highlighting and signposting great, free learning resources for and by library professionals.
AI is one of the most talked about topics in libraries right now. And it has particular relevance for library and information professionals for a number of reasons: the way people discover and evaluate information, questions of trust and reliability, copyright and much more.
And it’s a hotly debated topic. Many library workers are rightly skeptical about the hype, about the rush to implement anything that applies (or sounds enough like) AI to our workspaces and the tools we use. Others are equally enthusiastic about the potential of these tools for discovery, productivity and digitisation. But it’s not as simple as drawing a line between pro and anti-AI camps. We don’t always get to control what influences the sector or the way people engage with information. Either way we have to address the tools our users and colleagues are already using.
There’s a lot of interesting work happening on AI literacy, including efforts to clearly and definitively define what AI literacy is, such as this Ithaka initiative.
There are also guides and views on how to teach librarians about AI, like this poster produced by Michaela Mrazova based on a survey of 194 Czech librarians in May 2025.
And new problems are arising that we couldn’t really have anticipated, such as the influx of AI-generated content both in library journals and in the catalogue. WebJunction have addressed this in their course on detecting AI content.
For research libraries, the impact may be different to that of public and school libraries.
Not least the number of AI-based tools being aimed at the sector is significant and overwhelming. Librarians at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) have developed a tool that helps researchers evaluate the many (many!) tools that are aimed at them. (h/t Aaron Tay).
Despite the amount of words, the amount of hype, it’s surprisingly difficult to find good quality, free learning resources specifically for information professionals. But there are some solid resources emerging and we continue to keep an eye out for new developments.
And of course, the issue of who is behind the hype or who authors the learning materials matters. Information on the author of any learning resources included on Libraryskills.io is always noted on the listing. Authority matters!
While we are currently focusing on learning resources by and for library professionals, there are some great library-adjacent resources being created by organisations such as The Turing Academy that are freely available. But they don’t quite address the library perspective.
The AI curriculum on libraryskills.io is very much in beta – we’d love to add more learning resources in this (relatively) new and rapidly evolving area. And we’d particularly like to find open resources that reflect a range of approaches and viewpoints of AI for librarians and other information professionals.
It’s a platform that we don’t get to update as much as we’d like. But we always try to add new items when they cross our path either through the curation of our libraries Newsletter or through submissions we receive.
Many of the interesting or most relevant learning resources for AI are likely being produced inhouse to help staff navigate what can be a confusing and convoluted area.
We’d love to highlight these to help more people discover useful learning resources from an information pro perspective. If you’ve got a learning resource that you’ve either produced or used that you’d like to suggest, please let us know using the form on Libraryskills.io.