You Can Start a Community of Practice for Almost Anything! How Pacific University Library Faculty Unexpectedly Created an Important Community of Practice on AI Literacy
- Conference Year
- Online Northwest 2026
- Session
- 4
- Type
- Breakout Session
- Presenters
- Stephanie Brown, Pacific University
- Abstract
Communities of practices (CoPs) can foster collaboration and growth in a low-stakes, equitable environment. They can be formatted and shaped in numerous ways to bring people with a common interest together to discuss and take action on an issue. In this session, I will discuss how Pacific library faculty used an informal community of practice to solicit ideas and feedback from our library and campus colleagues for an “AI Literacy Toolkit,” and what we learned from the experience. I will also highlight the flexibility and fluidity of CoPs in order to demonstrate to the audience that they can be formed to address a question or need in many diverse scenarios. By creating a community of practice for our library colleagues to provide feedback on AI literacy instruction, we provided integral time to share concerns, fears, and enthusiasm for AI tools, and their impact on libraries and learning in general. This went beyond our original intention and had important impacts on our collaboration and communication moving forward.