MATTAWAN, Mich. — The Van Buren County District Library (VBCDL) has locations across the county.
There is a large Spanish-speaking population in Van Buren County, so Dan Hutchins, the library’s executive director, wanted to put more Spanish books in the libraries.
The library’s top book reseller, Baker and Taylor, had recently gone out of business, so they decided to fill in the Spanish book gaps through several different companies, like Ingram, Electrum, and then fill in the rest of the gaps with Amazon purchases.
A patron at the Covert location checked out a book on raising chickens, but returned it, telling the library that the information was not credible.
The patron cited the book instructing them to feed their chickens candy.
The library discovered that the book, titled, ‘Crianza De Pollos Para Principiantes: Una Guia Practica Para Criar Gallinas Felices y Sanas,’ which translates in English to, ‘Chicken Raising for Beginners: A Guide to Raising Happy and Healthy Hens,’ was generated with artificial intelligence.
The library immediately took the book off the shelf and discarded it.
“That was really a lesson for us when we purchased some of these Spanish language books that we quickly discovered were AI generated,” Hutchins told News Channel 3.
When searching for the book on Amazon, News Channel 3 discovered the book had been pulled and was unavailable for purchase.
The cover does not list an author, either.
While the VBCDL will rely on the reseller to vet the books they purchase to ensure they are written by a human being with accurate information, Hutchins said they will keep a closer eye on the books that come to their libraries as well.
“Now, we take a very close look at, ‘What’s the publisher? Is it a known publisher? Is the author someone who has a reputation, just a reputation at all, as one being real and human, and to being an author that is known for this topic area?'” Hutchins said.