From AI Workshops to Off-Campus Partnerships: A Library’s Journey of Engaging with Extension Agents
This presentation will explore the impact of using developments in AI as a library outreach tool. K-State Libraries AI team began conducting workshops on using generative AI which sparked the interest of many groups, including Extension agents, who wanted to learn more about AI and how to use it in their own contexts because they saw the library as a place to help them learn more. The team was invited to present a professional development workshop about the basics of AI to a group of family and consumer science extension agents. K-State is focusing more on external audiences and the team saw this engagement as a way to build off-campus relationships. A “get to know each other” session was included in the workshop for the extension agents to learn more about how the library can serve them and for the librarians to learn more about the work of Extension. This engaging, reciprocal outreach opportunity would not have arisen without people’s interest in generative AI.