Prompt Engineers or Librarians? An Exploration

Abstract

The article explores the role of “prompt engineers” as a professional title, extending beyond the field of generative AI for developers, comparing certain tasks to the role of librarians, such as conducting search queries. It is possible for librarians to work with AI models in conjunction with traditional literature databases with emphasizing the need to recognize the distinct nature of these information resources. We should take cautious consideration of the specific skills worth acquiring to improve work efficiency, as well as an understanding of the development trends in generative AI and library science.

Keywords:

• Generative AI
• large language models
• literature databases
• literature search
• prompt engineering

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.

Notes on contributors

Borui Zhang

Borui Zhang Ph.D. ([email protected]) is the Natural Language Processing Specialist at the Academic Research Consulting and Services Department at the Smathers Libraries at the University of Florida, 1600 SW Archer Rd. Room C3-66, PO Box 100206 Gainesville, FL 32611, USA.