Here's the good news: you already know how to do this. The reference interview, search strategy, source evaluation — the craft we've practiced for generations is exactly what makes a good prompt.
Five interactive illustrations that map a skill you already have onto a tool that's new.
The real question hides behind the first one. Before you prompt, do what you'd do at the desk — explore, ask the AI for its take, and agree on the goal before it starts producing.
Keywords, scope, and Boolean instincts. Shape a vague request into a precise one — the same way you'd turn a patron's words into a search that actually finds it.
Specificity is everything: audience, format, length, constraints. And a librarian's superpower — structure your prompt like a record, using the markup our profession has trusted for decades.
An AI answer looks authoritative. Read it the way you teach others to read a source — check the claims, read laterally, and trust nothing you can't verify.
A good search is a conversation, not one shot. Narrow, broaden, and ask the model how to get better results — meta-prompting as a reference skill.