2012

LITA preconferences at ALA Annual Conference

LITA is offering three full-day preconferences, to be held from 8:30 a.m. – 4 p.m. on Friday, June 22 at the ALA Annual Conference in Anaheim.

Web Content Strategy for Libraries
Speakers: Nina McHale, Arapahoe Library District, Colo.; Chris Evjy, Jefferson County Public Library, Colo.
Your library’s new website is powered by a high-octane content management system (Drupal, WordPress, etc.) that gives you more power than ever to communicate with your patrons. But what are you saying? How are you saying it? What kind of service are you providing online? How can you ensure that it’s just as good as in your buildings? Content strategy to the rescue! Topics will include strategy development, training & adoption, production control and governance.

Creating Library Linked Data: What Catalogers and Coders Can Build
Facilitator: Debra Shapiro, University of WI-Madison School of Library & Information Studies
This preconference is positioned to take advantage of the growing interest in the library community to work to transform the wealth of quality, library-created metadata – billions of bibliographic records, finding aids, descriptions of digital content – into linked data. Some of the infrastructure necessary is already in place, such as the availability of the DDC as linked data, Library of Congress’ efforts making the vocabularies it maintains available in Simple Knowledge Organization System (SKOS), and the Open Meatadata Registry, where RDA, Dublin Core, and other element sets are available in Semantic Web-consumable form. Production level tools to create linked data, as well as discovery systems to deploy linked data, are yet to be built.

The preconference will be an un-conference-style event. We plan to start with a series of lightning talks from librarians and technologists involved in a variety of linked data efforts. Afterward, we will break into work groups, to begin to design linked data systems, and associated discuss issues. The project work will be followed with reports from each group, so that everyone can share in the progress being made. Please join us in this important effort to begin the migration of library data into linked data, woven into the Semantic Web! Please visit the LITA website for a list of confirmed speakers: http://www.ala.org/lita/conferences/annual/2012

Building Digital Collections Using Islandora
Speaker: Kirsta Stapelfeldt, University of Prince Edward Island; Mark Leggott, University of Prince Edward Island
This session will introduce the key concepts underpinning the Islandora Digital Asset Management system. Participants will learn the basics of running this rich repository system and how to utilize common “solution packs” to create and theme collections in Islandora. Participants will learn how to begin modeling and curating custom data collections and how to migrate from other repository systems, including ContentDM, DSpace and more. Textbooks and system access will be provided; participants should bring computers.

Please note: you do not have to register for ALA Annual Conference to attend a preconference. Visit the LITA website for more information on registration and other LITA events at ALA Annual Conference: http://www.ala.org/lita/conferences/annual/2012