AI and the Sporadic Librarian-Coder: Adventures in Muddling Through and Excelling (Occasionally)

For the occasional librarian-coder--those who know more than the basics, but for whom coding is not a primary/daily task--trying to remember specific syntax or commands often creates enough inertia to prevent us from tackling projects or using coding in ways that could improve our work or help our patrons. Can AI coding tools, like ChatGPT and GitHub’s Copilot, lower the bar enough to make such projects worthwhile and successful...at least occasionally?

I present some of the ways I've used these tools to augment my less-than-professional coding skills in devising solutions to practical work challenges, like creating simple workflow improvements, building custom tools, collecting and parsing datasets for patrons, and enhancing data collections I’ve purchased for the library. Along the way, I’ll discuss opportunities, challenges, and some things I've learned by working with these tools.