2008

Minutes for the BIGWIG meeting at ALA Midwinter 2008 (1/13/2008)

Agenda

1. Questions regarding podcasts for LITA office candidates
2. Discussion on BIGWIG & Transparency
3. Conference podcasting
4. Brainstorm potential topics for social software showcase
5. ideas for interactivity or innovation for LITA forum

1. Questions for podcasts for LITA elections (Karen Coombs)

Podcasts for LITA candidates contained these questions last year:
1. Briefly describe your professional experience as it relates to holding LITA office
2. What do you bring to this position?
3. How do you envision LITA being a technology leader in ALA?

These informal podcasts were about 5 minutes long. David Lee King did these last year and will continue in this role for the next set of Candidates. The BIGWIG members present agreed that the set of questions was good.

2 BIGWIG & Transparency (Michelle Boule)

The Leadership of this interest group believes in and wants to exercise radical transparency for all discussions and decisions for the IG. We would like to install Drupal and set up a collaborative space with which to conduct planning activities. This site would be open to the entire web, and all discussion and planning would be conducted or made available in this space. Last year, the planning was done via Google Docs, email and a private wiki, and the Social Software Showcase was delivered via MediaWiki. Tools available in Drupal that we could make use of include: virtual meetings in the chat room, IG news delivered via RSS, web posting capability. The chat room could also be used to communicate with Showcase presenters.

Commentary on Drupal by present members and by John Chrastka, ALA Staff:
Drupal was used for the “Five Weeks to a Social Library” site as well as being the basis of the AADL site. It will also be used for the ALA online communities environment, with threaded discussion, live chat, a white board, document version control, and a calendar. Jenny Levine is a good resource at ALA for information on ALA Online Communities.

BIGWIG members present agreed that it would be good for the IG to implement Drupal and experiment with it now, see what ALA rolls out, then compare. We will give Jenny Levine feedback on what does and doesn’t work for the IG.

Everyone around the table thought that the idea of radical transparency is a good one and that Drupal is a good place to start.

3 Conference podcasting guidelines, procedures and plans for annual

The IG began recording podcasts at Annual in DC in 2007. Audio recorded on a sound baord has the best quality. The IG needs to choose which LITA sessions to record and how to coordinate this. Do we want to record whole sessions? How much editing should be done?

It was suggested that we ask presenters to create 5 minute audio summaries, and make these available for download, with an option to download the entire session. Summary podcasts could also be used to market the sessions.

John Chrastka informed us that there are plans for making a podcasting booth available at ALA Annual 2008 in Anaheim.

It was suggested that the IG should make a mini-tutorial available for presenters on creating podcasts and that if recording all LITA sessions was to much of a hardship, that we should solicit input from the Division members on what to record.

There currently is no central place to store the mini-recorders used to create podcasts. Karen Coombs will ask Mary Taylor for assistance and suggestions. It was suggested that the IG secure a small locker to keep these in, and that this could be kept in the ALA office. Presenters will also be asked if they have equipment that they can bring.

Karen will ask David Lee King if he is willing to continue to serve as Podcast Coordinator and will put David in touch with John. It was suggested that the LITA Office could assist with getting information to conference center and hotel staff that we would like to connect to sound boards to record.

Karen has notes on podcasting that she’ll make available; we’ll keep developing this plan. We do not want podcasting to fall through the cracks for annual.

4 Brainstorming for social software showcase: topics, virtual participation ideas, etc….

Suggested topics:
Zotero
Flock
Wikia search
Facebook apps: how effective, how viable
Twitter
open social: facebook supposedly signing on – how to take social contexts across platforms
Google knowl
pan-google social attempts
microcelebrity (see wired article on same)
ethics of the new web; what is privacy; what is “nice” and “not nice”?
activism in social networking
overcoming resistance to social networks
stovepiping – siloing of groups in social networks results in inbred opinions and no cross talk of groups

Suggestions to enhance virtual participation:

* use drupal discussion groups, chat room, etc?
* skype video conferencing? (subject to connectivity problems)
* virtual participation by conference call?

Karen will talk to PPC tomorrow about our technical needs for the Social Software Showcase. They might not be able to help with equipment needs but can try to help with space placement–so that we will get a room that meets our needs (wifi!).

5 LITA Forum 09 interactivity (Zoe Stewart Marshall Forum 2009 Planning Committee Chair)

history: Plannnig for 09 forum begins February 08. Planning committee has its first meeting at annual 08. They are looking for suggestions now for changes to the structure of the conference. It was commented that connectivity at the Salt Lake City forum location should be pretty good.

Would be great to create podcasts of keynotes; we should ensure that hotel is aware of our needs. Planning committee aware that some of the content becomes stale due to long process. They are also looking for suggestions for different types of sessions or ways to deliver content that will engage more users, and came to BIGWIG for ideas.

The committee is considering a “Bar Camp” approach, or the “lightning talks” that occurred at last year’s Forum. The committee wants to schedule these new sessions so that attendees don’t have to make a choice between traditional presentations and new stuff. It was suggested that posters and lightning talks at the same time so that people can ebb and flow among them (lightning talk is a poster session without the poster). It was also suggested that they use a twitter feed to broadcast who’s talking next. Notifications via SMS would be good too. opt-in for SMS notifications could be part of registration form.

Other feedback: the USB key was nice at last forum, but if there is no handout, would be nice not to have a blank pdf.

How to facilitate networking at the forum? Dinner doesn’t necessarily facilitate bar-camp-like discussion environment. “Birds of a Feather” was suggested–people would gather at an appointed BOF time to discuss topics important to them.

Members suggested posting an entry or link on the LITA blog soliciting additional ideas for Forum 09. IG members are also welcome to email Zoe with other ideas.

One comment

  1. david lee king

    slight correction – David Free did the podcast interviews last year – David King was asked to do them this year…

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