Upcoming AI Events

From brainstorming to grammar checks, generative AI can support your writing process, if you know how to use it right. This online session, led by Dr. Deborah Lee, Professor and Director of Research Impact and AI Strategy, Mississippi State Libraries, will show how generative AI tools can help you clarify ideas, refine drafts, and strengthen arguments. The focus will be on the ethical use of AI in the writing process.

Join us for an interactive, in-person Guided Copilot Practice Session designed to help you discover practical ways Microsoft Copilot can support your everyday work. Participants will have the opportunity to learn tips and techniques they can immediately apply. To meet the needs of all users, we will offer two learning groups: Copilot Chat (Basic) users Microsoft 365 Copilot (Premium) users Please bring your laptop if you have one so you can follow along and practice during the session. If you do not have a laptop, you can use a library lab computer. Event parking passes will be provided as needed. What to bring: Your work laptop (if you have one) Questions, challenges, or tasks you'd like help with A willingness to explore and learn alongside colleagues This hands-on session is designed to help you gain confidence using Copilot and make the most of the tools available to you.

Join the AI Staff Training and Application Team (AI STAT) for lunch and practical tips on using Microsoft Copilot in your everyday work. AI trainer Delaney Foster will show how Copilot can help with common tasks in Word, Excel, and Outlook. Lunch and event parking passes will be provided.

Dr. Deborah Lee, Professor and Director of Research Impact and AI Strategy, Mississippi State Libraries, explores practical ways AI can support the literature review process - from refining a topic and discovering sources to organizing ideas and identifying patterns in this online session. We'll also look at where AI falls short, including incomplete searches, hallucinations, and overreliance on generated summaries. The goal is to help you use AI strategically while keeping researcher judgement and scholarly rigor at the center.

If you're already using AI to build things helpful in your work, join us for an hour with others doing the same. It's a chance to talk about your projects, what's going well, and what you have questions about. A few people will start by describing what they've made, and anyone can share or ask questions. Bring something you've been working on, whether that's a workflow you've built, a prompting approach you've improved, or a problem you're still stuck on.

MAIN and Mississippi State University will host an in-person, no-cost AI leadership workshop led by SHI and NVIDIA on Thursday, October 15, from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. at The Mill (600 Russell Street) in Starkville. The invitation is open to Mississippi's public sector, including state agencies, institutions of higher learning, and community colleges. The workshop is designed for decision-makers in IT, research, and academia. SHI and NVIDIA will lead a strategy session focused on how AI systems are being used inside public-sector organizations today, deployments already underway at other institutions, the infrastructure required to support them, and the security and data considerations involved in moving generative AI projects from pilot to production. Mississippi's campuses and agencies are working through many of the same questions, often in parallel. This workshop provides an opportunity to bring those conversations together, learn from current deployments, and consider practical paths forward.