Introductions and Announcements

The meeting was called to order by Michelle Robertson – Chair. We went around the room and introduced ourselves. We had representatives from the University of Pittsburgh Health Sciences Library System, Drexel University, Boise State University, the Smithsonian Institution Libraries, the University of Arkansas – Little Rock, the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, Brooklyn College, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Syracuse University, LexisNexis, the University of New Brunswick – Saint John, Temple University, Northwestern University, the University of Notre Dame, the University of Alberta, Tri-Colleges (Bryn Mawr, Haverford, and Swarthmore), and Anne Arundel Community College.

LITA & HoLT Business

Michelle explained the purpose of the interest group. From the HoLT website:

“Established in 2001 and renewed in 2004. To provide a forum and support network for those individuals with administrative responsibility for computing and technology in a library setting. Programs and discussions will explore issues of planning and implementation, management and organization, support, technology leadership and other areas of interest to library technology managers and administration.”

Michelle further explained that the interest group is a discussion forum. Many HoLT members are information technology people and may or may not have an MLS. HoLT has a web page under the LITA Interest Group section. We also have a listserv (information available at http://lists.ala.org/wws/info/lita-holt) that has relatively low traffic.

Richard Wayne – Vice-Chair – presented a summary of the program planned for ALA Annual in Anaheim, California. The topic is “Transformational Change: The Evolving Role of Library IT Departments.” We have finalized three speakers who can represent different points of view on the topic. Robin Hastings is the Information Technology Manager at Missouri River Regional Library. Carole Kiehl is the Associate University Librarian for Information Technology and Technical Services at the University of California at Irvine. Terry Nikkel is the Director, Information Services and Systems at the University of New Brunswick, Saint John.

HoLTalk (Discussion)

Our first HolTalk topic was the issue of ‘Information Commons’ and the various roles played by its supporters. Here are responses offered by a number of members:

We have a new Dean and have experienced some reorganization as a result. Our Information Commons is not formally an Information Commons or IC. No one entity is responsible for the IC. It’s a part of a larger effort.

The library was constructed in the 1960’s and renovation plans are being discussed. A new Law School is being planned and the 3rd floor may become the Law Library. They are trying to make the rest of the library’s public areas like an information commons. They are trying to get as much technology as possible for the IC areas.

We are just starting to plan for an expansion to accommodate an IC.

We don’t use the term IC. We try and use the term ‘library’ as much as possible. We are about to implement our 4th IC that will be in front of the reference area. The four IC areas have 60, 120, 115, and 85 computers respectively. The one with 85 computers is 24 X 7.

Please define the concept of ‘Information Commons.’

I have been involved in two projects related to the concept of Information Common or Learning Commons. These concepts are not just a cluster of PC’s on the main floor of the library. They are also the services that come with the computers. Some examples are reference services, technology services, and other services. Some of these other services might be writing assistance, homework help, tutors, statistical consulting, and research services. Furnishings are very important as well. Students like to work together. You need to create clusters for them. Buy chairs on casters that can be moved. You need to create a comfortable, inviting environment. Not a quiet environment. Some places have emphasized the services instead of the technology. The unifying element is that information services are more easily accessible. People can connect with librarians, IT people, and each other more easily. If you are building a new Information Commons, you can do it right from the start. The biggest trick to convert an existing area to an IC is usually acquiring the appropriate funds. In both of my experiences, the IC was a huge success. Students just get it. It works. It works at this time. The IC may evolve in a few years.

Our University learned from a neighboring University. Some of the IC is not technology driven. People want dining style booths.

At our institution, it has been part of the undergraduate library. Now it basically is the undergraduate library. We have incorporated a new classroom and re-modeled an old classroom. There is lots of ‘loanable’ equipment available to students. Our IC has been very popular and very successful. The library is almost at 24 X 7. Our scholarly commons area will take over the traditional reference area. It’s not clearly defined at this time but we would work with faculty and researchers. The scholarly commons is also tied in with our institutional repository and the School of Communications. Part of this area is technology, part of it is reference. There are also subject specialists available.

We are using the concept of ‘Research Commons.’ We engaged in a master planning process to see how space could be re-designed. There were several phases to this. The first phase was the development of a café. It opens tomorrow. We tried to take the existing furniture and make areas more group-friendly. We ripped down the circulation and reference desks. We now have desks where trained library personnel can help users find information and circulate materials and help out with technology too. Sort of one-stop shopping. We ripped down our glass walls. The space is much more open now. An Internal Development Officer is looking at various areas of our master plan to try to get funding. We are collaborating with campus IT to put more computer labs in the library to get more use. IT staff will also be helping students in some cases.

Originally our lab was run by a collaboration with Academic Computing. It was not just a technology thing but the way that services were provided in those days. We are rethinking this based upon the way that users are working with us.

There are many different models. Let me throw a few things out. At my last institution, Library IT had a presence. There was quite a bit of discussion about supporting personal devices. For example, getting a student’s personal laptop to work with the campus wireless network. There were a number of group study rooms for four to ten students to work together. Some groups used the computers, some did not. We provided multi-media capabilities and presentation rooms. A student that had a PowerPoint for a class could practice with the PowerPoint prior to his or her class. One of the most popular pieces of furniture was bean bag chairs. We purchased around 15 and they have been extremely popular.

We provide facilities for audio and video editing. It’s all about providing services many of which already exist in several places on campus.

Our DVD burner is very popular. We have Macs in rooms where you can close the door. The rooms can be loaned for several hours. We have Adobe suites on some of our computers. There is more specialized software too. We have about 100 PC’s and 8 or 9 servers. We maintain this with 1.5 FTE.

The discussion shifted at this point to how can you maintain an Information Commons with limited staff?

The first response was ‘get a larger cup of coffee!’

We partner with central campus IT.

But our central campus IT is 20 miles away!

We also rely on central campus IT in many cases.

You need to involve campus IT into the planning process. For example, you need to discuss the sorts of applications that campus IT can support.

We are getting rid of our library [Windows] domain.

Central campus IT Departments still don’t get the concept of the Integrated Library System (ILS).

We have 400 computers in campuses all over the city and just 2 technicians.

Money is not coming for more people for the IC.

The IC is starting to break the camel’s [library’s] back with the increase in support needs.

How do you find [to hire] good technology people?

Recent applicants have been deplorable. They don’t even have basic technical knowledge. We are a consortium and the money offered is reasonable. The applicant pool has not been our students.

Is there much competition for these people in your local community?

Perhaps you need to advertise differently.

At our institution, it took us quite a while, but we found some good people. We went through 2 or 3 cycles to hire good people.

That was our experience as well. It takes some patience.

A lot depends on the market at the time of advertising.

You might look also at how human resources categorizes a job posting. In some agencies, it is not clear what the posted job really is.

There are many potential listservs where you can post jobs.

What should HolTalk discuss at ALA Annual?

We might continue the Information Commons discussion. Perhaps we can survey members with a short survey prior to the next HolTalk to see where they stand with their Information Commons.

Future Program and Publication Ideas?

Michelle read from our list of potential programs:
• Panel of new managers of systems departments – share experiences
• Managing IT staff and librarians
• Handbook for library IT managers / supervisors
• Systems departments’ relationships / involvement with other Library IT projects
• Stakeholder’s expectations
• Hiring, recruitment, and retention of IT staff
• Continuing education for IT staff and library employees
• Keeping staff current with technologies
• Doing the most with the resources that you have
• Cross-training, internships, volunteers
• External funding (grants, gifts, etc.)
• Purchasing versus leasing
• Research & development role of systems departments
• Project management
• Centralized versus decentralized
• Workflow issues
• Establishing collaborative relationships with others outside of the library
• Strategic planning
• Establishing priorities
• New and evolving role of library IT departments and personnel
• Attracting potential IT personnel from current library staff
• How to get others to understand what Library IT does
• Image of systems librarians to the rest of the library community
• Body of knowledge for best practices in systems
• International Computer Drivers License (basic IT literacy)

Please think about these ideas for the next meeting. A new LITA committee (Assessment and Research) may also help provide topics for future HoLT discussion and programs.

Wrap Up

We will need to elect a Vice-Chair at the next meeting.
Please sign one of the membership lists.
The Editor of Information Technology and Libraries (ITAL) is here. A member of the Publications Committee and one of the co-authors for an upcoming publication – Making Library Web Sites Usable – is also in attendance. They are always looking for potential topics as well.
Our author – Terry Nikkel – asked how many libraries have something in place for usability:

Adjournment

At ALA’s Annual Discussion, K.G. Schneider said there were two ways to look at this years library tech trends.
- Architecture of Aesthetics
- Architecture of Participation

Below are a few new concepts Alexander Cohen collected for LITA that affect the Library of the Future and its’ Architecture of Aesthetics…

Google’s Library Digitization Projects, Artificial Intelligence / Web Search Projects
Virtual Streetscapes
Kindle Amazon’s Ebook Reader
Harvard’s Green Campus: LEED Status

Bibliotheca Alexandrina “recapture the spirit of openness and scholarship”
British Library Books Go Digital
“RFID @ Las Vegas Clark County Library District”
Steelcase “Thinking about the Virtual Environment”
Daylighting “architects use of natural atrium lighting, acrylic building materials to light the Library.”
Digital Storage

Alexander Cohen noted areas that affect the Library of the Future. Areas the trendsters K.G. Schneider noted as the Architecture of Participation…

European Library’s API’s

MIT’s Dspace / IBM’s EDepot: Digital Asset Management
Social Networking: FacebookThe Espresso Book Machine
Betterworld Books and Hands Across the Water “reselling library books to public”

Linking: Software Garden RSS feeds
Open Source Projects: Druple
World Universities Forum: Feb 2008
$100 Dollar Laptop

Focus centered on pursuing plans for a program at the ALA Annual Conference, 2009 in Chicago. Approval for the program has already been granted. The committee would like to bring Nicholas Negroponte, founder of the One Laptop Per Child Foundation (OLPC), or someone from the foundation to discuss this vision and the foundations work. Other possibilities would be other organizations that are doing the same kind of work internationally such as Intel or governments with the same focus.

Larra Clark discussed the recent study Libraries Connect Communities: Public Library Funding and Technology Access Study 2006-2007: ALA Research Series. Larra discussed the highlights of the study. Some of the findings include: technology is bringing more, not less public library use; libraries infrastructure (space, bandwidth and staffing) is being pushed to capacity; and libraries need more technology planning and dedicated technology support. The report also includes a state by state summary of technology.

Kim Bolan and Robert Cullins, authors of Technology Made Simple: An Improvement Guide for Small and Medium Libraries, discussed their perceptions of technology in libraries. They were passionate about libraries but not books. They discussed thinking outside the box to troubleshoot many of the problems faced by small and medium libraries that do not have large budgets. User Centered Libraries was also a topic of discussion. Their book addressed the many problems face by small and medium libraries verses larger institutions. The focus of their book is the many creative ways to resolve technology problems in small and medium libraries.

The By-Laws and Organization Committee sent Helen Gbala to the meeting to discuss the charge of the committee. Since the charge was just written by the board and presented to the new committee last June, the members asked to try out the charge to see how it works before making comment.

The committee spent most of the meeting time discussing two topics: the continuing education needs survey of LITA members and potential online courses or webinars that LITA could offer. The survey should be ready to go by late spring. It will include questions on educational topics, preferred delivery method (live or async), reasonable costs, and other issues.

Interspersed with discussion of the survey the committee discussed offering online and live courses with these points:

Hot topics sell (Web 2.0, JPEG 2000)
Need a plan or schedule for courses going forward
Develop an application form to disseminate to the members
Need a webinar product like OPAL or Illuminate
LITA has access to Moodle

Before adjourning the group discussed possible times for the next meeting. It’s hard to pick a meeting time that doesn’t conflict with something else important.

While the session took place at Midwinter the work began in December via email. Participants were asked to answer a series of questions. Those questions included:

• Please think about the environment in which you live and work and what is happening in those areas that could have the potential to impact you and your business.
• As you look to the future, what are the issues and trends that you think could have some effect, either positive or negative, on you and your workplace? In other words, what is going on in the environment that you will need to respond to or plan for—today AND in the future?
• In order to track trends in library information technology that impacts professionals in the field, what data should be gathered and analyzed on a regular basis for benchmarking and trend tracking purposes?
• In order to track trends as well as the health and welfare of LITA as an association, what data should be gathered and analyzed on a regular basis for benchmarking and trend tracking purposes?

The email discussion and meeting helped us to clarify the range of potential issues that LITA and its members are likely to face in the foreseeable future. As Robin stated “by carefully identifying ALL of the issues, we can establish priorities for information gathering that will help LITA be better prepared to respond with information and knowledge rather than with the opinion and anecdotes from individuals.”

Based on the email discussion, Robin created a list of the top issues in field for our members:
1. Re-invention of library’s traditional space
2. New and increasing funding requirements
3. Increased need for training
4. Changing role of the “librarian”/impeding leadership crisis
5. Changing expectations about access to information
6. Information glut
7. Changes in the nature of social interaction
8. Increased privacy concerns
9. Need for new tools, customization and user-friendly interfaces.

We split out into 3 groups, and each group was assigned several topics to discuss. Each group brainstormed and shared their results. The results of the brainstorming session were photographed.

Here is what was identified as priorities for LITA:

Re-invention of library’s space: (issue 1)

• What is the value of our space both traditional and virtual; is it a success?
• Where are members going beyond LITA?

Money/Budget (issue 2)

• How do we (LITA) share our value/worth?
• How do we optimize staff and volunteers
• How much to put into new stuff such as research and development?
• When do we decide to stop doing something?

Increased need for training (issue 3)

• Value of training
• Preferred models of training? f2f, online, webcast, etc
• Why do people participate in training i.e. to learn, network, required, etc.

Changing role of the librarian …. (issue 4)

• Focus on membership like what are the true demographics
• What is role / expectation in say 5 years

Social Interaction (issue 7):

• How are they used by members
• what are their preferences
• where do they use them (this related to both social tools as well as portable devices)

Increased privacy concerns issue 8 – included both LITA members as well as those we serve at our home institutions

• What concerns do our users really have?
• What do our users think is private; what do they want/expect to be private

Need for new tools….. (issue 9)

• What are people using, how do they keep current, why they stop using a particular tool
• Vendor relations – what is the role of LITA in working with vendors; more vendors used to be members, why is this membership group declining?

The session was also covered in Cognotes, Saturday, January 12, 2008, page 20.

While much was accomplished there is still more to do. Work will continue via email. Look for more updates via the blog in the near future.

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.

Present were representatives of the National Archives of Canada, Liblime, Rowan University, Index Data, the Texas State Library, City College of San Francisco, Georgetown’s Law Library, Texas Wesleyan, the Massachussetts Trial Court Law Library, Florida State University, Wayne State University, Minnesota’s CLIC consortium, PALINET, Eastern Michigan University, and Wofford College.

Who’s Using What

Open-source content management systems were the most commonly used type of software, with Plone and Drupal coming up most frequently. About half of those present were at some level of consideration or implementation of an open-source ILS, with Evergreen and Koha being most mentioned, though there was also discussion of VuFind, Blacklight, and the eXtensible Catalog project; several had been to the Next Gen Catalog IG meeting the previous day where several of these projects were discussed. DLXS (digital library image management), WordPress (blogging), Moodle (courseware), and MediaWiki were also mentioned.

There was a lively discussion of programs planned for Annual in Anaheim.

Getting Started With Drupal (preconference). Cary Gordon, the speaker, was present by phone from the sunny West Coast.
Building and Supporting Koha, an open-source ILS. Speakers: John Houser of PALINET (present) and Joshua Ferraro of Liblime.
Legal Issues for Developing Open Source Systems for Libraries. Speaker from the Software Freedom Law Center.

The first-time chair got a lot of excellent advice on running successful programs, which he will try to honor in implementing them.

George Harmon of Florida State University volunteered to be co-chair between Annual in DC and Midwinter, and was duly elected. He will become chair at Annual in Anaheim.

A long-time member brought a couple of boxes of Linux live cd’s, the current version of Freespire. They were gobbled up enthusiastically.

The group decided to make use of ALA’s Online Communities and the LITA wiki to communicate about programs and other subjects between conferences.

The meeting flowed quite naturally into a discussion of practical issues with open-source in libraries, including the common perceptions that using open-source requires in-house expertise, and that commercial support is not available. Neither is necessarily true, as there are hosted services and a small but growing list of companies specializing in support of open-source library operations. Lots of those present were interested in the actual process of acquiring and migrating to an open-source ILS. The consensus was that open-source migrations are about the same as commercial migrations, but that there are some significant differences in the initial review and selection process. Specifically, assessing the health of a company and an open-source project are different things. Also, the usual RFP approach is to list features and see which service matches them–which doesn’t include the option to build the feature or have it built, as is possible with an open-source project. It is additionally entirely possible that the selection process will include dealing with the project, the support vendor, and possibly a developer of additional features. This creates a “gap of information” between the usual commercial process and what’s possible with open-source. Filling that gap is an additional part of the selection process, as is addressing the tendency to be skeptical of open-source and to have blind faith in products one pays for. Many of the concerns about open-source also apply to commercial vendors.

Chris Strauber
Chair

http://www.ala.org/ala/lita/litamembership/litaigs/erm/index.cfm

Zoe announced that Vice Chair position, responsible for organizing managed discussions, will be open. Those interested are invited to apply. Also, any suggestions for topics to be covered at
ALA annual are welcomed.

The first presenter, Ted Fons from Innovative Interfaces, Inc gave a brief overview of the Standardized Usage Statistics Harvesting Initiative (SUSHI) and a positive update that the standard was approved by NISO. He indicated differences between SUSHI and COUNTER. COUNTER is good on how to report the statistics on a smaller scale. SUSHI allows query for usage data through web services and saves time for staff. It took 18-20 months for the idea to be implemented. Last October the standard was finalized and approved for use, it is now standard Z39-93. Project EUCLID, Highwire Press, Gale all implemented SUSHI Server online. As of right now, content providers are at some stage of implementing SUHSI server. Mr. Fons jokingly suggested thanking your content providers for getting on board. There are several SUSHI versions, now we just need one efficient model. Read more about SUSHI: http://www.niso.org/committees/SUSHI/SUSHI_comm.html and http://www.niso.org/standards/resources/Z39-93-2007.pdf

Oliver Pesch from EBSCO gave an update on the new COUNTER schema upcoming release 3 since the previous was rather limited. This is no longer unknown technology. There are issues in implementation. On the server side it is issue of creating new user interface, backing up data, etc. It’s up to the client and the server to decide what reports to ask for, as long as the server and client agree.

Ed Riding from SirsiDynix gave a brief update and overview on the Cost of Resource Exchange (CORE) standard. It will allow pulling ILS-stored acquisition data into ERM system. He mentioned that the question of which data elements from ILS to bring into ERM system was queried by a group of librarians last year. Their white paper can be found on the DLF website: http://www.diglib.org/standards/ERMI_Interop_Report_20080108.pdf. At the same time SIRSI was discussing the same question with Serials Solutions. There were about 20-25 commonly requested data elements. Ed Riding’s group contacted NISO with proposal to create a standard protocol for exchange, using SUSHI and OpenURL as models. ERMS will store items with the same elements as ILS acquisition module: purchase order number, invoice number, fund code, vendor ID, etc. Whatever is used as markup language is to be determined by the group.
Next presenter, Brian Green from EDItEUR, was talking about developing standards for license communication: ONIX for Licensing Terms. It is a new ONIX standard for expressing and communicating licence terms between systems using a standard XML schema. With the explosion of digital resources libraries sign numerous licences with terms of agreement varying from institution to institution. The paper format is difficult for the users to consult on how to comply with licence terms. The answer is a machine readable license, and that’s when ONIX Publications Licence format (ONIX-PL) comes in. It is a structured XML statement of all terms and conditions which is sent to the library’s ERM system. The ERM system looks after user authentication and links the actionable licence terms to the relevant resources. When users access a resource, they are then informed about permitted uses. JISC and Wiley were one of the first to map the licence to ONIX-PL format. SCELC, Springer and Serials Solutions are also working on implementing ONIX-PL format.Some libraries want to receive ready mapped machine readable licenses, some prefer to map their own terms. ONIX-Pl is not intended to replace paper license, at least not yet.  Read more: http://www.editeur.org/onix_licensing.html and http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/programme_pals2/synthesis/standards/olt.aspx

Last speaker, Kathy Klemperer from Library and Information Systems Consulting gave an update on recently published materials on ONIX for Serials formats and documentation. A content item description message was added in the latest release. It is used to transmit information describing individual content items (usually articles) within a release. Another message added is a content item extended description, which is used to transmit detailed information about individual content items (usually articles) in a release. New release supports the provision of table-of-contents alerts, notification of single-article releases, and distribution of article-level information suitable for populating abstracting and indexing databases. Ms. Klemperer finished her presentation with a statement that those messages benefit everyone: they help to keep holdings up to date and help with claiming.

All messages are available at: http://www.editeur.org/onixserials/ONIX_SRN09.html

Some ideas for subsequent programming could be a review of J2K tools and a discussion of how much metadata is appropriate to put in the JP2/JPX file format metadata boxes.

The IG is preparing a program on using JPEG2000 for preservation for the Annual meeting in Anaheim. The description of the program was revised to:

The JPEG2000 image file format has made modest progress as an access master in cultural heritage application. Its acceptance as a preservation master format has been necessarily more cautious and deliberate. Panelists in this program will offer perspectives for using the JPEG2000 standard for preservation of still and moving image archives. Participants will learn the advantages and disadvantages of JPEG2000 as a preservation format and gain an understanding of trade-offs in the parameters that the specification offers.

Billy Kwan was also mentioned the options for online courses using ALA’s new Moodle system. At this time, the j2kIG doesn’t have any plans to take advantage of that, but the chair will put it on the agenda for the IG’s business meeting in Anaheim. The j2kIG interest group is also up for renewal this year, and is working through the paperwork. In that process, the attendees at this meeting selected Peter Murray from OhioLINK to continue as chair and Nick Baker from Williams College to be vice-chair.

Technorati tags: jpeg2000, j2karclib, j2kig

Aaron Dobbs is the Committee Web Coordinator and he will put Committee reports up o the web site in a timely fashion, so make sure Aaron gets reports.

Chairs should also recommend committee members and let Andrew Pace know of suggestions.

President Mark Beatty encouraged all Chairs to report out about what we’re doing. He asked all Chairs to complete reports so that the LITA Board can be updated and so that all LITA members can have a clear up to date picture of organization activities.

Vice President/President Elect Andrew Pace asked Chairs to encourage people to volunteer for Committee positions by completing the online forms available. For those rotating off committees: it would be very helpful if you can mention a potential successor Once people are “in the system”, they can be tapped for all kinds of LITA activities. He also asked Chairs to attend the Town Meeting 8am Monday morning.

Executive Director Mary Taylor introduced Melissa Prentice, who pointed out resources listing incoming chairs and deadlines that will be vital for all Chairs. Mary also introduced Valerie Edmonds, Program Coordinator, who can provide information for those planning programs.

Upcoming deadlines: completed descriptions of programs are due January 15 and there’s a workstation with printer and net connection in the LITA office to help with this process. January 21 is the date for 2008 official program text, and Program Planning Committee will pass along what they have to Valerie.

Lorre Smith, of Membership Development Committee asked the group to discuss the aspect of MDC charge having to do with leadership development, and a discussion developed with possible programming and other activities to be pursued by MDC.

Bonnie Postlethwaite discusse the Assessment and Research Committee workshop and their efforts to help LITA be more reliant on data for analysis of issues and decision making.

Pat Mullins of the Nominations Committee is looking for volunteers to run for LITA Board and for Vice President, so please contact Pat with nomination ideas!

Barbara Spivey, the Education Committee Chair, is also looking for those who are able to offer online courses, so please contact the Committee with suggestions.

The membership has increased slightly and is slowly reaching former pre-dues-increase levels. The student category is the fastest growing category. The Committee had a brief discussion of “what next?” in terms of target groups and mention public libraries and technologists who are not in libraries at this time.

The Happy Hour on Friday comprised about 90 interesting people, with Don Lemke and Lorre Smith greeting members at the door and distributing “glowy things”. Planning for Anaheim Happy Hour got underway and it will be on Friday at 4:30, just before the LITA 101 Open House at 5:30.

Al Kornish took over the duties of scheduling members into the LITA booth, so all of you who are dying to spread the word about LITA can talk to Al about doing so in the booth at the annual conference!

Future MDC efforts will be in LIS schools, Second Life, at the Forum in the fall and at the Spectrum Professional Options Fair and the New Members Round Table orientation. Watch for interesting interactive events, audio and video!

According to Todd Carpenter, 2008 will also be a busy year for NISO. For example, a working group to explore issues surrounding institutional identification has recently been formed. This working group will propose an identifier that will both uniquely identify institutions and describe relationships between entities within institutions. One of its first tasks is to review the existing institutional identifiers, such as those found in the MARC Code List for Organizations.

NISO will also hold four “Thought Leader” meetings in 2008 that will bring experts together to discuss topics currently of interest to the standards community. Possible topics for future Thought Leader meetings include preservation issues, cataloging and information exchange and the Semantic Web.

Another important activity that NISO hopes to accomplish in 2008 is to begin to develop partnerships with other standards bodies, such as OASIS. It is also pursuing secretariat responsibilities for ISO TC 46/SC9. The ISO TC 46/SC9 is responsible for such standards as ISBN and ISSN.

After Mr. Carpenter presented, Holly Eggleston of the University of California, San Diego spoke about Shibboleth and electronic resources. “Shibboleth is standards-based, open source middleware software which provides Web Single SignOn (SSO) across or within organizational boundaries. It allows sites to make informed authorization decisions for individual access of protected online resources in a privacy-preserving manner” (From the Shibboleth web page at: http://shibboleth.internet2.edu/). Two goals of Shibboleth is to improve access to licensed electronic resources, regardless of user location and to create a consistent user experience. Ms. Eggleston presented several scenarios of how to use Shibboleth to meet these goals. One scenario showed how Shibboleth may be used with EZproxy, an inexpensive server side proxy system. Holly Eggleston also described how Shibboleth is being used by the University of California, San Diego libraries.

Remember to renew your Interest Group.
Everyone should have gotten an email about the renewal … if you are the chair, you need to be so listed on the website. Check the ComChair list.
Many groups are up for renewal and should really contact Mary Ellen Tyckoson.
Renewal is streamlined now and please take care of it at midwinter … print off the form from the website or get it from the ALA-LITA office. Review the description of the group, submit 3 reports from the last 3 Annual Meetings, and sign.
Question: have renewals ever been denied? Sometimes, the renewal is postponed if the information isn’t complete. Actually, there is no official mechanism for an IG to be disbanded, but Mary Ellen will look into it. To change a description, petition to change the name. The IG part of the LITA manual has been revised and will be posted by end of Midwinter.

Program proposals… it’s really not clear what the exact deadlines are for annual. For instance, what are the dates for Annual 2009? Right now, the 2008 cycle is up. It was recommended that we check the PPC web page for the latest dates…. And hopefully the 2009 cycle will be up there soon. It’s really important to have a direct contact with PPC to get your group and idea on the PPC radar.

Remember, managed discussions at Midwinter do not need to be “approved” by PPC… but they will not be marketed either. It will only be listed as a meeting by your Interest Group.

How do you market things for your IG events?

• Usually, near the sign up area, there are pigeon hole boxes
• give out the flyer at other meetings
• get it out on the listservs
• put it at the LITA table
• get your speakers to post on their blogs
• word of mouth
• Open House at Annual (usually it’s early in the Annual conference, for Anaheim, it’s Saturday 4-5 and Happy Hour is 5-6)
• Really need catchy titles
• Co-sponsoring across divisions can really work because you are marketing to a bigger group more easily.

Don’t write off Midwinter as a good venue since the attendance is often better because you’re not competing with other programs.

Conflicts continue to be a problem at Annual, and often, programs are on the same topic. PPC does not see the other division programs until too late. But, we need to make sure that LITA programs aren’t creating conflicts as well. IG chairs should consider sharing their “ideas” early on, perhaps at meetings like this. PPC would need to be part of this process. Sunday afternoon already has LITA president’s program and Top Trends. You might consider getting a Sunday morning slot to try to create a LITA day.

Why aren’t we using Technology to share our ideas? Why aren’t we using technology to shorten the process? Again, as we all know, we are facing the problem of technology moving faster than the planning process allows. BIGWIG just uses “showcase” in their description which allows last minute additions that are very trendy and relevant. BIGWIG checked the rules… and it is allowed!!! PPC is sympathetic to this situation. Again, “managed discussion” may be the way to go. In the end, many of the IG’s at the table said that the program descriptions may have to be vague … but realize your marketing has be viral prior to the conference because your program description may not be much of draw in the conference book. For the ALA Agenda planner, it is important to be sure your titles match up … don’t change those … and check on your location.

Remember that ALA blocks out slots and no-conflict time are sacrosanct.

If you are an IG chair, you should be on the ComChair email distribution list. Holly Yu (HYu3@calstatela.edu) is new IG coordinator. She asked if there are things we want her to do. Mostly the group agreed that it’s information dissemination and posting to the web. Also, it would be good if Holly could help orient new chairs.

Be sure to check at the LITA table for hand-outs, sign up sheets, all forms, and message box. ALA “desk” also has the needed forms.

Evaluations are only done for programs. You may want to do an evaluation for a “managed discussion” if that evaluation would be worthwhile information.

See you at Annual.

The design concept for the ALA website is now available for review. It’s up in Philadelphia on kiosks in the Pennsylvania Convention Center, but anyone can get to the site from anywhere. The URL is http://alamockups.luminanze.com.

Please visit when you get a chance. , Feel free to publicize the URL.

There is a link to a survey at the end of the mockups; please be sure to complete the survey to let us know what you think. Also, please remember this step in the process is just about the graphic design. Interactivity and site architecture and other features will be coming in future iterations of the design.

{URL corrected to http://alamockups.luminanze.com/}

The hosts at Cebu have offered LITA the following:

Drink Specials:
$3 House Mixed Drinks
$2.50 Domestic Beer
$5 Long Island Iced Tea
$5 House Apple Martini’s and Cosmopolitans
$5 House Red or White Wine
Food:
15% discount (Limited to food bill only, must be seated in Main dining area)
Sampler of various Hors d’ oeuvres stationed at the Main Bar

Be sure to print out this flier [pdf] and bring it to Cebu; it is your discount card for the evening (copies will also be available at the LITA table)

• The use of Linux as a server platform as well as a desktop platform will increase – The latest version of Windows seems to have gone over like a lead balloon. Institutions still have server-class needs. Add these two things together, and you will see more IT shops considering and adopting Linux for their operating system. At a much slower pace, Linux will increasingly appear on user desktops because retailers are selling dirt-cheap computers with Linux pre-installed. Ubuntu, a particular Linux distribution, gets rave reviews for its user interface. Clean. Easy to use, and easy to learn. As Linux becomes more predominant, so will the concept of open source software, and that is an additional ball of wax that has already been mentioned numerous times.
• Open access will grow, I hope – H.R. 2764 was put into law this past month. In it was a provision mandating recipients of NIH grants to submit their articles to PubMed 12 months after publication. This ought to bring a flood of content to bare. We can only hope that a precedent will be set and more content will become open access from publicly funded sources. If this comes to fruition, then this will be a boon to acquisitions departments. “How can we collect, archive, and preserve this content for the long haul?” Remember, “lots of copies keep stuff safe”, and it is foolish and antiquated to think it is more efficient to keep digital things in only one place; it behooves libraries to collect and index this content. The stuff that will last for decades (if not centuries) will be the stuff that is duplicated over and over again.


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• Social networking spaces will mature a bit more – For the most part, humans are social beings. We seek out groups of others, not just individuals but entire societies. If this is true, then it is natural for social networking communities to exist. Ironically, they are nothing new. How many of you remember Usenet or even dial-up bulletin board systems? The difference now-a-days is the proliferation of the Web browsers instead of modems. There are may social network places: MySpace, Linked-In, Facebook, etc. Each of these function but Facebook, with its ability to allow people to create programs for it through its application programmer interface (API), will probably grow faster than the others. Yes, the addition of the API provides more functionality, but more importantly, it harnesses the power of networked people the same way the development of Linux harnessed networked people. Centralized authorities may be ideal (more or less) when there is not a lot of communication between large groups of people. Consider the governments of the Middle Ages. When communication and accessibility channels are flattened the work of the whole group comes to bear more effectively. For these reasons, social networking spaces will continue to grow. The environment is ripe.
• Blogging will continue to effect the way we communicate – Blogging most certainly was cutting edge two years ago. The blog-o-matic such as bloglines.com was in vogue. The technological infrastructure to make a blog happen was cheap, if not free. It was cool to have a blog. While it is still cool, I see many blogs going by the wayside and not getting updated. I believe this is true because people realized the time commitment a truly successful blog requires, namely, having something to say on regular basis and knowing how to say it in writing. Yet, the good (and prolific) writers who blog will exert an influence in the way we think and share ideas. I have been told that the following sounds very librarianish but I still think it is true. One of the powers of writing is that it transcends both space and time. Something can be written in the here and now but communicated with somebody across the globe three years from now. Very powerful. Blogs amplify this power.

Finally, the entity that has made all of these things possible has been our network of globally accessible computers. Each one of those words (“network”, “globally”, “accessible” and “computers”) packs a wollup, and combined into a single thing represent a huge change in the way we live and work. Let’s call that the understatment of the decade.

–
Eric Lease Morgan
University Libraries of Notre Dame

January 7, 2008

1. Questions for LITA election podcasts
2. BIGWIG and Transparency
3. Conference podcasting: Guidelines, Procedures, Plans for Annual.
4. Social Software Showcase topic brainstorming

For further information about the Interest Group contact Karen A. Coombs or Jason Griffey

I know it’s a busy time… Sunday… but we’re very excited about our special guests.

The agenda includes two topics:

1) A Standards Update by NISO Managing Director Todd Carpenter

2) Beyond the IP address: Shibboleth and electronic resources by Holly Eggleston, Assistant Department Head, Acquisitions, University of California – San Diego

For further information about the IG, contact:
Éva Bolkovac
Chair, Standards IG
eva.bolkovac@yale.edu

RFID Interest Group will meet on:
Saturday, January 12th, 1:30-3:30 pm at the MARRIOT, Salon B

1) RFID Tag Quality and Emerging Standards by leading RFID Scientists Paul Sevcik and Roger Larson

“Is one RFID tag the same as another RFID tag? Absolutely not! And standard, accepted accelerated aging testing proves this. Some tags will fail over time – how does this impact your system? What are the emerging RFID tag standards, why are they important, and what will they provide for your library? What can systems provide to allow for changing standards? Come learn about the latest about RFID tag quality and emerging RFID standards.”

2) RFID Standards Update by NISO RFID Standards Working Group Chair Vinod Chachra

“What standard is NISO going to recommend in the U.S? Will it be the Danish Standard? Please come and learn what the RFID Standard recommendation will be for the U.S.”

For more information, contact:
Jacob Haas
RFID Interest Group Chair
jhaas@mmm.com

Saturday, January 12, 10:30-12:00pm, Courtyard Downtown, Salon III
#3 on the map (PDF).

The LITA Distance Learning Interest Group will meet at the 2008 ALA Midwinter Conference in Philadelphia to discuss current issues in distance learning and some of the exciting things the interest group has planned. Here are a few of the things we’d like to discuss:

• Our program, If we don’t call it distance learning, does it exist?, for Annual 2008.
• A possible LITA webinar on distance learning issues.
• A possible online course.
• Uses for our blog at http://dlig.wordpress.com/ .
• General issues in distance learning such as integrating library resources with course management systems.

Are there other topics you’d like to discuss? Please feel free to leave them in the comments or email Karen Wetzel or Lauren Pressley and we’ll add them to our list.

All are invited! Please bring your experiences and ideas to share in an informal setting. We hope that you will join us for a lively and useful discussion.

The LITA Next Generation Catalog Interest Group will meet on Sunday, January 13, from 4:00 to 6:00pm in the Hilton Garden Inn (conveniently located just outside the convention center), in Salon A/B.

We will have presentations and discussion about three locally developed and/or open source catalog projects. Ross Shanley-Roberts of Miami University will discuss their SolrPac project; Bess Sadler of the University of Virginia will discuss their Project Blacklight; and Chris Barr and Andrew Nagy of Villanova will discuss their VuFind project.

A brief business IG business meeting will follow the discussion.

If you like to write and are looking for new ways to get involved (or have blogged in the past and would like to blog again), please email tiffany.lmb.smith@gmail.com and indicate what sessions you would like to cover.  The blog schedule for Midwinter (http://litablog.org/blog-schedule-ala-midwinter-2008/) has been posted and will be updated as we receive volunteers.

We will be taking volunteers up to and during the conference.  Thanks very much in advance!

Friday, January 11th 7:30-9:00pm
Courtyard Downtown, Salon II
21 N. Juniper St. (this is a conference hotel)
http://www.marriott.com/hotels/event-planning/floor-plans/phldc-courtyard-philadelphia-downtown/

Our agenda is set, though we welcome any additional announcements or topics for discussion:

– Discussion of the work being done on the Cost of Resource Exchange (CORE). The group working this standard has submitted the proposal to NISO and are waiting to hear back if it has been approved for further work under NISO sanction. Feedback on the draft is very welcome. — Ed Riding and Jeff Aipperspach
A brief draft description: “The purpose of this specification is to facilitate the exchange of cost and related financial information by an Electronic Resource Management System (ERMS) from an Integrated Library System (ILS) Acquisitions module. The population of ERMS financial data from the ILS Acquisitions system makes cost-per-click and other cost-related reports in the ERMS all the more
possible.”
http://www.niso.org/news/events_workshops/erm07/shows/erm07koppel_CORE.pps (powerpoint)
** for those lists that permit attachments – two documents related to this draft standard are attached **

– EDItEUR will have some real progress to report on the piloting of the ONIX-PL standard for XML expression of licensing terms, and the
implications for ERM — Brian Green, EDItEUR
http://www.editeur.org/onix_licensing.html

– NISO’s License Expression Working Group — TBD
A discussion about this group and its tie with ONIX-PL to get feedback and questions from the community on that area.
http://www.niso.org/committees/License_Expression/LicenseEx_comm.html

– Update on recently published materials on ONIX for Serials formats and documentation – Kathy Klemperer
http://www.editeur.org/onixserials.html

– Standardized Usage Statistics Harvesting Initiative (SUSHI) update — Ted Fons
http://www.niso.org/committees/SUSHI/SUSHI_comm.html

The above agenda does not necessarily reflect the order in which these topics will be discussed.

If you have any additional announcements or topics for discussion, please let us know so we can be sure to add you to the agenda.

Zoe Stewart-Marshall
ERMIG Chair

Clara Ruttenberg
ERMIG Vice Chair

ps. Be sure to check out the LITA ERM IG webpage. The ppt slides Ted Koppel’s presentation on e-books, from Annual, are available for viewing.
http://www.lita.org/ala/lita/litamembership/litaigs/erm/index.cfm

This year’s Town Meeting will focus on “Communicating and Marketing the Strength of LITA.” LITA’s new Emerging Leader, Lauren Pressley, will help lead a discussion of the strategies and technologies used to communicate to the LITA membership and to market membership success to the division, ALA, and the greater library community. LITA’s Programs and Marketing Specialist, Melissa Prentice, will also be on hand to participate.

Please use the blog (preferably with comments here) to submit your input prior to the conference. Coverage and follow-up discussion after the conference will also be posted here. The perspective of members unable to attend conferences is critical to the success of valuable marketing and communication for the division. For the rest of you, we look forward to seeing you in Philly.

Day 1: Design Process; Day 2: Usability
Learn about design process for managing digital projects in libraries and usability theory and methodology. This workshop covers two days, and can be attended for either day, or both days. Day One focuses on design process. Staff skills and responsibilities, artifacts of the design process, and communication channels are addressed. Web technologies and standards are included as a framework. Day Two focuses on usability theory and methodology. Practice with usability technique and methods, information on additional types of test methods, and administrative issues are addressed.

Presenter:
Brenda Reeb, University of Rochester Libraries

Both Days: LITA member: $310;
ALA member: $520;
Nonmember: $720.
One Day: LITA member: $180;
ALA member: $285;
Nonmember: $385.

You do not have to attend the Midwinter Meeting to register for the workshop.

To register, please visit the ALA Conference Services Web site: http://www.ala.org/ala/eventsandconferencesb/midwinter/2008/registration.htm