Artificial Intelligence as a Cataloging Tool (Webinar)

March 5, 1 p.m., presented by Bobby Bothmann

ChatGPT and other large language model tools, generative artificial intelligence (AI), entered the scene in late 2022, causing a stir around job security, ethics, and many other concerns and exploits. Library leaders began planning for AI in the workplace as early as 2018.

Now that it is here, we have seen how AI fabricates false MARC records, providing some relief for job security for now. Yet AI can be a helpful tool when it comes to original cataloging. This session will provide an overview of generative AI, discuss advantages and ethical concerns, and provide examples of how it fails to do cataloging. It will also provide scenarios for the use of generative AI as an everyday tool for cataloging.

Online Registration

Bobby Bothmann – Biography

Bobby Bothmann is a professor at Minnesota State University, Mankato where he serves as the catalog and metadata librarian. Bobby catalogs analog and digital resources of all kinds, including books, serials, moving images, objects, cartographic resources, musical and spoken word audio recordings, and music in between many meetings. He is a member of the editorial board for Cataloging & Classification Quarterly and an active member of OLAC (OnLine Audiovisual Catalogers) where he has served in various leadership roles including treasurer, president, and the current archivist.

He holds an MLIS from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee and an MS in Geography and English Technical Communication from MSU Mankato. Bobby moonlights as an adjunct instructor for the School of Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he teaches cataloging and classification courses and tries to convert one student per semester to the cataloging side of the Force.


The views expressed in webinars provided by PCI do not necessarily reflect the views or official policies of the State of Arkansas, the Arkansas Department of Education, or the Arkansas State Library.