(Sep 2023) Academic librarians serve their students and faculty to help them navigate the research process. Therefore, when a new technological tool blazes through higher education, as ChatGPT has over the last few months, it becomes increasingly important that librarians are aware of the tool and its uses so that they can serve their students and faculty. After decades of the ACRL Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education, the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education was established with a much more flexible route for integration into curricula. The Framework provides librarians and disciplinary faculty with a customizable way to provide information literacy instruction that meets the needs of students and enables them to become participants in the information that they are producing (not just consuming). Because of the Framework’s flexible nature, librarians can incorporate new technology, like ChatGPT, more easily into their instruction.
We have found that the idea of ChatGPT (and generative AI more broadly) can be connected to many of the knowledge practices and dispositions from the six frames of the ACRL Framework. In some places, the Framework enables us to embrace ChatGPT as an exciting new tool that adds value to information literacy instruction. In other places, the Framework’s discussions of evaluating authority and examining bias shines light on the inherent flaws of ChatGPT. In the next section, we will review each of the frames and discuss how ChatGPT fits into each of those Frames.
Amy B. James and Ellen Hampton Filgo, librarians at the Baylor University Libraries, share their views here.
