Get Your Leadership Team and Your Board on The Same Page About AI
A Shared Briefing for Library Leadership and Board Members with Crystal Trice
OVERVIEW:
Library leaders and board members are being asked to make decisions about AI without a shared understanding of what is already happening. A vendor adds AI features to a product the library already pays for. Staff are using tools before guardrails are in place. A leader reads something concerning and brings it to the next meeting. Everyone in the room is working from a different set of assumptions about what AI is, where it is, and what it can do.
This session builds a shared starting point in one hour. Bring your leadership team, bring your board, or bring both. It is a briefing rather than a workshop, designed so that the conversation continues after it ends, in your next meeting and in the hallway conversations in between. Along the way, we will note where a question is typically a board matter, a leadership matter, or something your library will need to sort out for itself, since governance structures vary widely.
WHAT YOU'LL GAIN:
- A Working Understanding of AI, Without the Jargon: How AI moved from predicting to generating to acting on our behalf, and why that progression matters more than any single tool. Enough grounding to be conversant in a meeting and to recognize when a claim needs a follow-up question.
- A Realistic View of Where AI Already Is: AI adoption does not always arrive through a board vote. It shows up in discovery layers, cataloging tools, databases, accessibility features, and staff productivity software you already purchased. We will look at where it is likely already operating in your library, and at what staff and patrons are doing with it.
- An Honest Look at What Can Go Wrong: Accuracy, privacy, bias, copyright, security, and the question of where human judgment stays essential. Presented plainly, with real examples, and without hype in either direction.
- A Framework for Where Human Oversight Stays Essential: As AI tools move from generating text to completing tasks, the question shifts from what AI can do to what it should be permitted to do without a person in the loop. We will work through concrete scenarios that surface where your library is comfortable putting AI into practice.
- Shared Talking Points for Decisions Ahead: Questions worth asking about existing AI use, vendor relationships, information the library is handing to AI systems, and what happens when something goes wrong. These become the common language your team brings to policy conversations, budget conversations, and vendor conversations.
WHO THIS SESSION IS FOR:
This session is designed for library directors, administrators, managers, department heads, and board or commission members. No prior AI knowledge is assumed.
It works well for a leadership team attending on its own, for a board attending on its own, and especially well when both attend together. It is appropriate for public, school, academic, and special libraries, and for organizations at any stage of their AI work, including those who have not started the conversation yet.
This 60-minute online session is part of our "AI for Leaders" Series. The recording and presentation slides will be available to all who register, along with the question sets you can bring directly to your next meeting. You might also use the recording to start or structure a later conversation.
DATE: Friday, October 9th, 2026, 2:00 pm to 3:00 pm US - Eastern Time
COST:
- $99/person - includes live attendance, anytime access to the recording and presentation slides, and a participation certificate. To arrange group discounts (see below), to submit a purchase order, or for any registration difficulties or questions, email admin@library20.com.
GROUP PRICING:
- Email admin@library20.com to arrange.
- $349 Organizational License - covers all of your library's leadership team and board members, with individual log-ins and access to the recording and presentation slides.
- Consortium and State Library Licensing Starting at $999 - email to determine scope and arrangements.
TO REGISTER:
Use the payment box above to register and pay for an individual license. You can pay by credit card. You will receive an email within a day with information on how to attend the webinar live and how you can access the permanent webinar recording. If you are paying for someone else to attend, you'll be prompted to send an email to admin@library20.com with the name and email address of the actual attendee.
If you need to be invoiced or pay by check, if you have any trouble registering for a webinar, or if you have any questions, please email admin@library20.com.
NOTE: Please check your spam folder if you don't receive your confirmation email within a day.
With over two decades of experience in libraries and education, Crystal Trice is passionate about helping people work together more effectively in transformative, but practical ways. As founder of Scissors & Glue, LLC, Crystal partners with libraries and schools to bring positive changes through interactive training and hands-on workshops. She is a Certified Scrum Master and has completed a Masters Degree in Library & Information Science, and a Bachelor’s Degree in Elementary Education and Psychology. She is a frequent national presenter on topics ranging from project management to conflict resolution to artificial intelligence. She currently resides near Portland, Oregon, with her extraordinary husband, fuzzy cows, goofy geese, and noisy chickens. Crystal enjoys fine-tip Sharpies, multi-colored Flair pens, blue painters tape, and as many sticky notes as she can get her hands on.
