GROUP: Assessment and Research Committee

CHAIRS: Diane Bisom, Bonnie Postlethwaite

REPORTER: Bonnie Postlethwaite

CONFERENCE: Midwinter

MEETING: Committee meeting

ATTENDEES: 12

CURRENT ACTIVITIES: Discussion Items & Actions:

1. Approved minutes from prior meeting.
2. Mary Taylor presented data files on LITA membership (available on Committee’s Google docs site).  Available data points cover various parameters, such as membership in other divisions; number of programs; etc.  Data seems to reflect a recurring trend of membership increases and decreases over time.  Personal membership trends over the past few years are:
   • 2003: 3907
   • 2004: 3776
   • 2005: 3423
   • 2006: 3500
   • 2007: 3752
   • 2008: 3447

   Mary also indicated that ALA will have a data dashboard later in the spring which may provide data and trends over time.  She also mentioned that ALA is doing a mailing to all people who have dropped membership in the last three years.

3. Reasons for membership attrition were discussed, with speculation that some decreases could be due to increased LITA and ALA dues.  However, it is hard to read the tea leaves, so maybe some direct data from former members could be collected by conducting an exit interview.  The idea of making personal phone calls to former members was suggested and passed on the Membership Committee liaison, Mike Bolam, for consideration.  Mary will also check resources available through the Association of Associations to find any available best practices or tools for conducting exit interviews.
4. The Education Committee reported on its survey to determine LITA members’ interests.  They are also looking at evaluation forms for various LITA programs (ALA conference, Forum, LITA camp).  And they are considering best ways to share data on what worked with a program to improve operations within LITA.
5. Bonnie mentioned the 7 Measures suvey of LITA Committee/IG Chairs that was conducted at ALA Midwinter.  The results are still being compiled and will be posted to the Committee’s Google docs site.
6. Co-chairs asked Committee to think about the LITA Research agenda in order to be able to advise the LITA Board on next steps and budget needs.  We need to work with other LITA units to determine what data might be needed.  Priority questions needing to be addressed are membership recruitment and retention and programming.

FUTURE ACTIVITIES: Action Items:

1. Action item: Develop a template for what this committee could do for the other units.
2. Action item: Committee members should go to Town Hall Meeting to hear about both member and outsider perceptions of LITA.
3. Action item: Review survey results that Bonnie is compiling and be prepared to discuss by email.
4. Action item: Committee members with terms expiring in June 2009 who are interested in renewing or joining this committee need to fill in the volunteer form on the LITA website.  The new appointment would begin after ALA Annual in July 2009.

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS: Present: Diane Bisom (Co-Chair); Bonnie Postlethwaite (Co-Chair); Frank Cervone; Gail Clement; Michelle Kowalsky; Mike Bolam; Andres Orphanides (via Skype); Stephanie Walker (via Skype); Elizabeth German (Guest); Mary Taylor (LITA Executive Director); Peter Hernon (Guest); Ranti Junus (Guest).

Minutes compiled by Gail Clement.

GROUP: Technology and Access Committee

CHAIR: David Nutty

REPORTER: David Nutty

CONFERENCE: Midwinter

MEETING: Committee meeting

ATTENDEES: 9

CURRENT ACTIVITIES: Planning for a program at ALA Annual Chicago has been the main focus of the committee prior to and at the Midwinter Meeting in Denver.  The committee has focused the topic to Net Neutrality.  The committee has tentative commitments (later confirmed) from three outstanding speakers.  Due to the quality of the speakers and the timeliness of the topic, we have requested a larger room for ALA Chicago.

Other business at the Midwinter meeting included discussion of the LITA Strategic Planning Meeting; a request from the Board to draft a resolution for Judith Krug on the 40th anniversary of the Freedom to Read Foundation; and the committee’s role in promoting access to LITA conference programming via low-cost or mobile technologies.

FUTURE ACTIVITIES: The committee’s program at ALA Chicago: “Net Neutrality and its Implications for Libraries” is the primary focus for the committee in the next six months.

A committee member will work with the Chair to draft a resolution for Judith Krug.

A committee member will serve on the new e-Participation task force.

The committee will continue to respond to NISO feedback opportunities as appropriate.

The committee will continue to work closely with the LITA Legislation and Regulations Committee.

GROUP: Education Committee

CHAIRS: David Ward, Mandy Havert

REPORTER: David Ward

CONFERENCE: Midwinter

ATTENDEES: 12

CURRENT ACTIVITIES: LITA Education combined with Regional Institutes in the past year.  We spent from Annual 08 – Midwinter 09 reviewing our charge and creating organizational documents to track and help guide the newly combined committee’s role.

Part of this involved assigning committee members as liaisons to all LITA IGs/Committees to gather information on possible educational programming opportunities, including Regional Institutes, Programs/Preconferences at Annual, Midwinter opportunities, and online webinar/tutorial/course planning.

At Midwinter we reviewed liaison reports and decided on the following topics to pursue programming for over the next year:

• Open Source
• Mobile Tech
• RDA
• Extensible Catalog
• SOA (Service Oriented Architecture)
• Semantic Web

Additionally, we are going to work with LITA Forum Committee, Top Tech Trends, PPC, and others to pursue other topics and speakers as opportunities arise.  In particular, we are going to look at ways to build additional educational programming from successful programs and events form other LITA committees.

FUTURE ACTIVITIES: Develop at least 2 education programming opportunities from the following topics:

• Open Source
• Mobile Tech
• RDA
• Extensible Catalog
• SOA (Service Oriented Architecture)
• Semantic Web

Also, put on additional educational programming as opportunities are identified from the work of other committees/IGs/etc.

GROUP: LITA/Brett Butler Entrepreneurship Award

CHAIR: Martin Halbert

REPORTER: Martin Halbert

CONFERENCE: Midwinter

ATTENDEES: 5

CURRENT ACTIVITIES: The LITA Brett Butler Award Committee met on Saturday, January 24, 2009, at 1:30 PM in the Colorado Convention Center room 712.  Several members were absent because of budget cuts in travel at their institutions.  Attending were: Nancy Colyar (Past Chair), Martin Halbert (Current Chair), Ronald Peterson, Mary Alice Ball (Board Liaison), and Helen Wilbur (Awards Representative).  Absent were: Emily Ford and Billy Kwan.

The committee selected this year’s recipient of the award, and will write this up together with the citation for presentation at the awards ceremony at annual.

FUTURE ACTIVITIES: The group noted again the small number of nominations this year (3), and discussed ways of increasing the awareness of the award.

Publicizing the award on additional listservs was the first priority:

• CNI-Announce (Martin)
• DLF-Announce (Martin)
• MLIS program listservs (Nancy) or school by school (Ronald)
• PLA Directors listservs (we will contact Mary Taylor)
• Statewide listservs (Helen, perhaps through LSTA listservs)

We also thought presentations at other non-ALA conferences might help:

• CNI (Martin and Helen will contact Cliff Lynch)

Next Steps:

• We will have Mary Taylor coordinate with other committees on publicity.
• We will engage Cliff Lynch with other thought leaders in nominating process.
• Get the word out at the beginning of the Fall circa September.
• Post on Gale website.
• Martin and Helen will coordinate this at the end of the summer (contact her right after Labor Day).

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS: We discussed membership and will be in touch on either renewals or recruitment of new members.

Anyway: We had five people at the single 2009 ALA Midwinter Meeting session–two committee members (Judy Jeng and Juan Carlos Rodriguez), Board liaison Mark Beatty, ITAL editor Marc Truitt, LITA Executive Director Mary Taylor and me. Given the extent of his advance comments, I’d consider committee member Paul Bracke to be a “virtual attendee.”

Topics:

• ITAL: The December issue is out, enough articles are on hand for the March and June issues, and probably enough for September. New submissions continue to arrive–and, as is typical of a high-value journal, fewer than half of the submissions are accepted. The ITALica blog hasn’t had a lot of activity to date, but it also doesn’t show up in end-of-article blurbs yet. (There aren’t metrics for blog readership yet.) The group discussed ITAL’s print status and OA status (currently a six-month embargo). Apparently, only half of the production budget is print-related, and outside subscriptions almost cover the costs (but not quite). The group suggested a member and subscriber survey to determine current preferences for print vs. e-only. Mary Taylor will look into availability of recycled paper (used by some other divisional journals). (We noted the possibility of an OA e-only journal with optional end-of-year print using PoD, as some journals are now doing.)
• LITA Guides and LITA monographs: We discussed the current Guides contract. One Guide proposal appeared just after Midwinter, and will be routed to committee members for discussion. There’s not a big flow of monographs (or any, actually), and we discussed whether there were loads of ideas out there where LITA could add value and books needed to be written. Opinions differ.
• Technology Electronic Reviews: With a resigning editor, two 2007 issues (the second having only three reviews) and no 2008 issues, TER appears moribund. The general feeling during the meeting was that the best solution might be to revitalize ITAL’s reviews section and invite TER reviewers to submit reviews to ITAL. That discussion may also be ongoing.
• The role of Publications Committee: Some discussion. Is the committee vital as a revenue source? Should members be actively soliciting possible monographs? Should the group take a look at both content that’s out there and appropriate venues? This is probably a long-term discussion, maybe to be moved forward with a younger and more energetic chair.

–Walt Crawford, chair (for now), LITA Publications Committee

I apologize in advance for too much keypress noise on the recording. I was monitoring the sound, but couldn’t hear the fact that my typing was so loud! Sorry if that annoys anyone.

In any case, here we are: LITA Top Tech Trends from ALA Midwinter 2009!

Here are the questions we asked during the breakout session:

1. What makes LITA unique inside ALA and in the greater community?
2. Who else is filling the same role as LITA right now?
3. What areas of IT are not be addressed in the community?
4. How do other organizations see LITA?
5. How can LITA work with other organizations?
6. What can LITA learn from peer organizations?

We had 12 tables in the room so 2 tables discussed each question. I posted pictures of the notes from each table and they can be found on Flickr.

I want to thank the following guests for coming to this event and participating in the discussion:

• ACRL (Association of College and Research Libraries): Susan Kroll
• ALCTS (Association for Library Collections and Technical Services): Dina Giambi and Mary Case
• ASIS&T: Nancy Roderer (Past-President)
• BCR (Bibliographical Center for Research): Regan Harper
• Digital Library Federation (DLF): Barrie Howard
• RUSA (Reference and User Services Association): Neal Wyatt
• Taigi: Tom Wilson (Board Member)
• OCLC/WebJunction: Beth Gutsche

I would also like to thank the Twitter table for getting a feed going on the spot! I really enjoyed reading it after the fact and I know those who could not attend enjoyed participating from wherever they were.

Finally, I would like to thank Matt Barnes from R2 Consulting for volunteering his time and facilitating the discussion.

Trendster Roy Tennant rounds out the LJ commentary with an inside perspective on the integration of live blogging, twitter, and streaming video and congratulations to the committee for “getting tech right.”

GROUP: Web Coordinating Committee

CHAIR: Jean Rainwater

REPORTER: Jean Rainwater

CONFERENCE: Midwinter

MEETING: Committee meeting

ATTENDEES: 8

CURRENT ACTIVITIES:

• At the Midwinter meeting the WCC discussed the need for clarification and coordination of web communication. Meeting reports and minutes are frequently posted to a combination of LITA website, wiki, and blog. The WCC recommends that the LITA wiki be the official repository for Committee and IG documentation, meeting reports, minutes and the like. The LITA website should be focused on the current information needs of LITA members and the tools by which members can interact with the site and with each other, should draw news items from the LITA blog via RSS feeds and should provide links to the wiki for meeting reports and other documentation.
• A review of the LITA website found large gaps in metadata for Collage files; content without metadata is less findable by the ALA and other search engines.

FUTURE ACTIVITIES:

• Before Annual 2009, the WCC will survey LITA members on what they want and expect to find on the LITA site.
• The WCC will work with ALA on a LITA website redesign which will harmonize with and include the web 2.0 features of the redesigned ALA site. A monitored discussion of this prototype will be held at Annual. After feedback at Annual usability testing will be conducted and the new site launched before September 2009.
• Members of the WCC with Collage training will address problems with missing metadata for website content.
• WCC members will test, provide feedback, and actively participate on ALA Connect.

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS:

Attendees: Mary Axford, Kevin Clair, Anne Graham, Lisa Sibert, Lauren Pressley, Jean Rainwater (Chair), Michelle Frisque (LITA Board Liaison), Melissa Prentice (ALA Staff Liaison).

Absent: Tim Donohue, Karenann Jurecki, Karen Coombs, Daniel Suchy, Holly Yu, Rafal Kasprowski.

Pop Out

We’ll also have an audio-only download/Podcast coming in the next few days, for those that want to listen on the go. If you have other suggestions for where this should be posted, or if you embed the video somewhere, let us know!

1. Schedule corrections for Imagineering and Public Libraries & Technology Interest Groups
2. Program planing submission process. We need to streamline the process, remove the manual process and cange it with a web-based form if possible, and have it ready by Annual 2009 for 2010 program submission. At this point, it might be difficult to achieve it in six months if we rely on ALA IT to build the infrastructure for us. A working group would be established to assess and provide recommendations
3. Program proposal work flow. The PPC committee would like to see if individuals could submit a program proposal without going through formal Interest Group channel. Another working group would be created to research and provide recommendations.
4. LITA Manual section 10 on Programs at ALA Annual Conference and how to make the manual more user friendly. A group of PPC members would look into this.
5. Looking at possibility of LITA PPC to sponsor a program, especially to help new members and/or incoming IG chair to organize a program.

We’re getting a new program proposal from the International Relations Committee. They’re planning to bring topics on technology and developing world:

• OLPC (One Laptop per Child) project.
• OACIS (online Access to Consolidated Information on Serials),a project to digitize and make available selected scholarly humanistic Iraqi journals. Also a similar project, AMEEL (A Middle Eastern Electronic Library), to digitize about 100,000 pages of scholarly journal content from ten Middle Eastern countries, as well as providing technological training and infrastructure between those institutions.
• United Nation efforts on bringing new technologies to the developing world.

Tentative schedule is Saturday, 8-10am.

• Should I choose tech things that have changed they way I think about technology this year?
• How specific or narrow should my trends me?
• How accessible to non-techies

Also, I worry about getting a diversity of opinions and people feeling they the trends the trendsters put forward are too general or obvious. Picking trend is hard for all these reasons, plus you don’t want to pick something that turns out to not really be a trend.

So, this time I’m categorizing my trends a bit.

My personal A-HA trend

Web applications which are extremely flexible, versatile and extendable. For me the app that has typified this in my work this year is Drupal. Drupal is a veritable swiss army knife which can be used in a variety of ways. I’m been playing with it for our library’s intranet, writing about using it as a library website CMS, and experimenting with using it for digital library collections. I’ve been nothing but impressed. And while this particular app my come and go, the idea that software should be built in this way is one which has made a distinct impression on me. It is influencing the way in which I’m asking my developers to build and what new software I’m choosing substantially.

The everyone’s going to say it but it needs to be said trend

Mobile technologies are changing society. They are here to stay, they are only going to get better with time, and we need to expect mobile devices to be a significant portions of our usage. Enough said.

The one which scares the sh!t out of me

The waking digital preservation nightmare Whether it is books digitized by Google, videos posted on the web, or Flickr photos the explosion of digital content for which there isn’t a clear curation plan has create a void which few libraries seem to be willing to step up and fill. Getting to know more about about digital libraries in the last year has given me a greater appreciate for just how difficult the job of preservation is. It goes beyond backing stuff up. You have to make sure the bits you started out with are the bits you currently have. You have to migrate file formats and technologies become obsolete and you have to make sure you have the right to migrate formats. There seems to be a serious lack of this taking place in commercial content sharing ventures.

The trend which I think may empower smaller libraries the most

Hosted supported open source software There is an increasing number of companies both in the library and non-library world providing hosting and support for open source software. LibLime and Equinox should be familar to folks now. But companies like CraftySpace (which provides Drupal-based website design and implementation), The Cherry Hill Company (Drupal – demo site), and incsub (which provides support and development for WordPressMU) as well as library consortia are getting in the game. This could change the game for smaller libraires causing a rise in the adoption of open source. Some consortia efforts worth noting in this arena?

• Plinkit for Oregon Public libraries (Plone)
• My Kansas Library on the Web (WordPress)
• Idaho Commission for Libraries eBranch in a Box (Drupal)

1. The Art of Web Presence Maintenance

With libraries extending their web presences out beyond the borders of their own websites proper, the coordination and successful maintenance of these presences has become a skill in its own right. How to successfully leverage a Facebook page for your library? How to successfully use Wikipedia to promote your library’s services? On which sites should you be present? How to successfully use YouTube for library videocasts? The list goes on and on. The skills include the ability to creatively manage your different presences, updating them when appropriate, keeping information current, participating in new sites when warranted, and deleting outdated presences. More libraries are designating people other than their traditional website managers to manage these extended parts of their web presence. For many libraries it is a decentralized process, while for others it is all done by one person. Managing a library’s extended web presence truly has become an art, and an art that each library needs to (and seems to want to) learn about. I see the future bringing more and more libraries focusing on this aspect, and the real skills that these tasks require, such as customer service, web skills and knowledge, writing skills, etc.

2. Plug-ins, Widgets, and Hacks, Oh My!

Websites are no longer stand-alone entities. They are segmented bits of code, little pieces of functionality, all grouped together to make dynamic and interactive pages. The number of plug-ins, widgets, and hacks in the last year that can be used effectively on library websites has increased dramatically compared to previous years. This has a lot to do with services opening up their APIs, more people interested in creating technology that works for them when they can’t find an existing version. This opens up all sorts of possibilities for any library. Most of these services are free which has resulted in many, many libraries taking advantage of them. The number of libraries taking advantage of these will continue to grow, especially in times of difficult budgets when “free” is the only choice.

3. My Kumpyootur Kan Has a Kloud

Cloud computing has been discussed a lot in the information community in the last few years. Libraries have taken advantage of this already by using services such as Google Docs to offer services or enhance communication. When cloud computing becomes the norm (which I and others think it will in the next few years), this will be a boon for library users. Their services, files, software permissions, etc. will all be stored remotely by their service providers. They can use our computers, which will likely have to be less robust (less software installed, as an example), to access their super-awesome services and get their personalized profile right there in the library. But what about those users who don’t have services? What will the library provide as a standard, and how? Cloud computing will be an amazing development in information access, but it probably won’t end the complains in public libraries about wanting the library to purchase or provide access to obscure services/software. Sorry :/

4. Online Training Has Its Debutante Ball

To date, most libraries (and by libraries I mean library managers and supervisors) treat online learning like it isn’t valid. Not in your library? No? Think of this: does your manager allow/encourage staff to go to in-person classes held by the library staff, your parent organization, etc.? Does your manager equally, if at all, allow/encourage staff to view webcasts, review online tutorials, look at online training materials, etc.? Most libraries that I have visited (a mix of public and academic) have little time for staff to go to training, and little funding at that. However, they will happily pay for an in-person class that also involves an hour of travel time for the attendee, but not give the same person time to watch a webcast on the same topic from his/her desk. It’s almost as though there is an unwritten rule: “If you’re at your desk, it’s not real training.” While as a trainer I completely agree that some topics require in-person classes, most topics can be covered through online screencasts, webcasts, written tutorials, and the like. Fortunately, in the last year I have seen more libraries opening up to online training as a valid training delivery method. I believe that this also has to do with budget difficulties. Less money = a need for creative training approaches. Incidentally, this applies for your users too. Create a screencast of your email basics class and point users to that. With increased demand for classes on email, resume writing, finding a job, etc., it pays to offer an alternative to the waiting list for the in-person class.

5. Less $ = Less eResources (a disturbing trend)

I conducted an informal survey of libraries in my area to see if their eResource budgets were being cut because of the bad budget year (and the many to follow in all likelihood). It seems that eResources (databases and eBooks) budgets are being cut more than the traditional collection budgets are. This could be a San Francisco Bay Area anomaly, but I’m guessing not. And I’m wondering why it became OK to consider eResources less essential than physical ones. Times are tough – which is precisely why eResources make more sense. They have a higher return on investment, examining cost vs. use, (up to 5 times as much in my studies). They are accessible to anyone with a computer and internet connection, any time. And for the bulk of them, there is not a limit to the number of users who can access the information at any given time. Especially for periodicals, eResources make more sense than physical ones. And yet, this year, periodical budgets aren’t being cut but periodical database budgets are. This is disturbing to me as it shows an overall “second class” status for eResources, while in my opinion the return on investment for materials should be what counts most. I am distressed to think that now that we have finally climbed that mountain where most library staff accept the place of eResources in our libraries, we are sliding back and saying that they aren’t as important to us, or our users. And that’s why the trend is disturbing – did we ask the users? What do the users think about this? What would they prefer, if given all of the information?

What can you see as usefulness of a group like PLTIG? We had a lively discussion on some ideas:
Competencies in technology in small & rural libraries … survey being done by Emerging Leaders.
Roving Service model and the types of technologies that would support that development.
This could be a place where the technical and non-technical could connect.
Table talks where you could learn from an expert …
Want to listen to what other libraries are doing.
Look into webinars for sharing the information/content
Training structures for libraries (drop-in training and mobile technology … e.g. I-touch)
ACRL pre-conference on how to set up Facebook Apps; search plug-ins; widget box; Google gadgets; libex toolbar;
Sometimes it’s the little libraries and how they are “making do” with smaller budgets & smaller population density… so how does it affect service models.
Mid-sized libraries can have more flexibility in building something new….
The web has changed what smaller libraries can done, leveling the playing field.
The program aspects of what is available tech-wise that librarians can use right away.
Is there a concern about “fragmentation” vs. “consistency”?
Isn’t just important to have a framework… can IT depts do that for staff?
Some people may be dropping those Internet charges and will that mean that “in-person” activity increase even more?
Digitization projects are becoming more important in building content.
What about consortia and what is the impact of delivering technology services to libraries? Cooperation is key.
It looks like we can spin our business meeting into an Ask the Expert moderated discussion with such topics as I-phone apps; Facebook Apps; Roving service technologies; “Delicious” or Online tagging; Best practices… maybe providing a venue to promote what is already out there such as Tech Notes; Is there any technology smaller libraries should skip?;

Advertise “Ask an Expert” in PLA … and other divisions.
Paul will email everyone who is here to ask who they know could be experts…

Then we discussed the SRP program for Annual… assuming we get our Sunday afternoon slot.
We reviewed the panel participants and decided that screen shots will be best for demonstration purposes.
We should also have a hand-out that shows comparatively what each vendor/system is providing.
5-10 minutes per person and then 20 minutes for questions.
Presenters could include the “end-user” experience, their goals, how they implemented, what worked and what didn’t, evaluation. And how to overcome the password protection issue and/or how to retrieve the information. Perhaps each presenter could just pick 2 or 3 topics out of this list in person but everything would be available in a virtual hand-out.

Great meeting!

Click Here

Please note that we will not be able to post all comments during the session. Before and after the session, please feel free to leave comments or questions in the comments to this post.

Trendsters participating in the session:
Clifford Lynch, Director of the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI)

http://www.cni.org/staff/clifford_index.html

Karen A. Coombs, Head of Web Services, University of Houston Libraries.
“Library Web Chic” blog: http://www.librarywebchic.net/wordpress/
Karen Coyle, librarian and consultant in the area of digital libraries
Blog: http://kcoyle.blogspot.com/index.html
Karen Schneider, Community Librarian at Equinox Software.
“Free Range Librarian” blog: http://freerangelibrarian.com/
Marshall Breeding, Director for Innovative Technologies and Research, Vanderbilt University.

http://lib1a.library.vanderbilt.edu/breeding/

Roy Tennant, Senior Program Officer, Research, OCLC.

http://roytennant.com/

UPDATE: blogger surferblue posted a nice list of the links mentioned in the session as well as an excellent transcription/summary of what was said by the trendsters. Thank you, surferblue!

All of the speeches and leadership lessons were interesting and dynamic. However, long blog posts sometimes are not, so below you find the key points and lessons from the talks:

Leslie Berger spoke on leadership and what she hoped the Emerging Leaders would gain and also give back to ALA. Her key points included the following:
- Ask and challenge. Then ask and challenge. Ask why, why, why, why? Don’t be afraid to challenge the status quo and constantly ask yourself and others “Why do we do it this way”?
- Be bold – don’t be afraid to speak out and ask “the old guys” questions (a reference to older, more experienced members of ALA that new members may feel intimidated by)
- In ALA it’s not about who’s right, it’s about reaching our goals together as an organization.

Maureen Sullivan drew on her immense experience in library leadership and consulting experience to provide the following leadership insight:
- The five key elements of good leaders are: they challenge the process, they inspire shared vision, they enable others to act, the model the way, and they encourage the heart.
- She recommended the work of Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner for further insight into what makes great leaders.

Peter Bromberg spoke on the key skills that are necessary to successful virtual teamwork – a huge part of the Emerging Leaders program.
- The habits of successful virtual teams include: strong orientation towards results, high levels of communication (some kind of synchronous communication is key), the embracing of technologies that work well for all team members, accountability on behalf of all, and excellent team dynamics.

Keith Fiels stopped by for a few moments and let the Emerging Leaders know the keys to being great leaders within ALA:
- Show up, volunteer when the opportunity arises, and you promise something, deliver on it.

Jim Rettig spoke briefly on the importance of transparent organizations and mentioned that in many ways, the work that the Emerging Leaders do is very much like the work of President Obama – it creates change and if done correctly lends to organizational transparency.

Connie Paul led a variety of activities throughout the day, including goals assessment, identification of team goals and strategies and ice breakers.

Again, for further information and to view the presentations, visit the Emerging Leaders wiki at http://wikis.ala.org/emergingleaders/index.php/2009_Emerging_Leaders_Program

We will have presentations and discussion about two examples of recent next generation catalog endeavors.

Beth Jefferson (Founder of Bibliocommons) will share real world examples and implications of “Transforming online library catalogs from searchable inventory systems into engaging social discovery environments”.

John Mark Ockerbloom, University of Pennsylvania Libraries and chair of the Digital Library Federation’s ILS-DI Task Group will “Outline the DLF ILS-DI recommendations, describe some of the activities inspired by or related to the recommendations, and discuss what fruit they can bear”.

The demand for new ways for users to discover relevant library resources has grown tremendously in the past few years. Application development and deployment has been limited, however, by the need to interoperate with any of a variety of integrated library systems. In 2008, a Digital Library Federation task group published a set of recommendations for standard functions that could be used by discovery applications to obtain metadata and other services from any ILS. They included a basic level of ILS-application interoperability that was endorsed by most ILS vendors, as well as more advanced levels that may allow even richer interactions in the future.

A brief IG business meeting will follow the discussion.

Midwinter 2009‘s “What’s Happening“document  is now available [PDF].

View Larger Map

What library issues are most important to ALA members to share with President Obama?  The ALA Town Hall Meeting will discuss this topic on Saturday, Jan. 24, 3 PM to 4:30 PM, in the Four Seasons Ballroom at the Colorado Convention Center. Share your views at the Town Hall Discussion wiki.
http://wikis.ala.org/midwinter2009/index.php/Town_Hall_Discussion

Just click on the day, and you’ll see a list of the LITA events happening in Denver! Easier and faster (I think) than the ALA program planner.

Indexing with Solr/Lucene works well – Lucene seems to have become the gold standard when it comes to open source indexer/search engine platforms. Solr — a Web Services interface to Lucene — is increasingly the preferred way to read & write Lucene indexes. Librarians love to create lists. Books. Journals. Articles. Movies. Authoritative names and subjects. Websites. Etc. All of these lists beg for the organization. Thus, (relational) databases. But Lists need to be short, easily sortable, and/or searchable in order to be useful as finding aids. Indexers make things searchable, not databases. The library profession needs to get its head around the creation of indexes. The Solr/Lucene combination is a good place to start — er, catch up.

Linked data is a new name for the Semantic Web – The Semantic Web is about creating conceptual relationships between things found on the Internet. Believe it or not, the idea is akin to the ultimate purpose of a traditional library card catalog. Have an item in hand. Give it a unique identifier. Systematically describe it. Put all the descriptions in one place and allow people to navigate the space. By following the tracings it is possible to move from one manifestation of an idea to another ultimately providing the means to the discovery, combination, and creation of new ideas. The Semantic Web is almost the exactly the same thing except the “cards” are manifested using RDF/XML on computers through the Internet. From the beginning RDF has gotten a bad name. “Too difficult to implement, and besides the Semantic Web is a thing of science fiction.” Recently the term “linked data” has been used to denote the same process of creating conceptual relationships between things on the ‘Net. It is the Semantic Web by a different name. There is still hope.

Blogging is peaking – There is no doubt about it. The Blogosphere is here to stay, yet people have discovered that it is not very easy to maintain a blog for the long haul. The technology has made it easier to compose and distribute one’s ideas, much to the chagrin of newspaper publishers. On the other hand, the really hard work is coming up with meaningful things to say on a regular basis. People have figured this out, and consequently many blogs have gone by the wayside. In fact, I’d be willing to bet that the number of new blogs is decreasing, and the number of postings to existing blogs is decreasing as well. Blogging was “kewl” is cool but also hard work. Blogging is peaking. And by the way, I dislike those blogs which are only partial syndicated. They allow you to read the first 256 characters or so of and entry, and then encourage you to go to their home site to read the whole story whereby you are bombarded with loads of advertising.

Word/tag clouds abound – It seems very fashionable to create word/tag clouds now-a-days. When you get right down to it, word/tag clouds are a whole lot like concordances — one of the first types of indexes. Each word (or tag) in a document is itemized and counted. Stop words are removed, and the results are sorted either alphabetically or numerically by count. This process — especially if it were applied to significant phrases — could be a very effective and visual way to describe the “aboutness” of a file (electronic book, article, mailing list archive, etc.). An advanced feature is to hyperlink each word, tag, or phrase to specific locations in the file. Given a set of files on similar themes, it might be interesting to create word/tag clouds against them in order to compare and contrast. Hmmm…

“Next Generation” library catalogs seem to be defined – From my perspective, the profession has stopped asking questions about the definition of “next generation” library catalogs. I base this statement on two things. First, the number of postings and discussion on a mailing list called NGC4Lib has dwindled. There are fewer questions and even less discussion. Second, the applications touting themselves, more or less, as “next generation” library catalog systems all have similar architectures. Ingest content from various sources. Normalize it into an internal data structure. Store the normalized data. Index the normalized data. Provide access to the index as well as services against the index such as tag, review, and Did You Mean? All of this is nice, but it really isn’t very “next generation”. Instead it is slightly more of the same. An index allows people to find, but people are still drinking from the proverbial fire hose. Anybody can find. In my opinion, the current definition of “next generation” does not go far enough. Library catalogs need to provide an increased number services against the content, not just services against the index. Compare & contrast. Do morphology against. Create word cloud from. Translate. Transform. Buy. Review. Discuss. Share. Preserve. Duplicate. Trace idea, citation, and/or author forwards & backwards. It is time to go beyond novel ways to search lists.

SRU is becoming more viable – SRU (Search/Retrieve via URL) is a Web Services-based protocol for searching databases/indexes. Send a specifically shaped URL to a remote HTTP server. Get back a specifically shaped response. SRU has been joined with a no-longer competing standard called OpenSearch in the form of an Abstract Protocol Definition, and the whole is on its way to becoming an OASIS standard. Just as importantly, an increasing number of the APIs supporting the external-facing OCLC Grid Services (WorldCat, Identities, Registries, Terminologies, Metadata Crosswalk) use SRU as the query interface. SRU has many advantages, but some of those advantages are also disadvantages. For example, its query language (CQL) is expressive, especially compared to OpenSearch or Google, but at the same time, it is not easy to implement. Second, the nature of SRU responses can range from rudimentary and simple to obtuse and complicated. More over, the response is always in XML. These factors make transforming the response for human consumption sometimes difficult to implement. Despite all these things, I think SRU is a step in the right direction.

The pendulum of data ownership is swinging – I believe it was Francis Bacon who said, “Knowledge is power”. In my epistemological cosmology, knowledge is based on information, and information is based on data. (Going the other way, knowledge leads to wisdom, but that is another essay.) Therefore, he who owns or has access to the data will ultimately have more power. Google increasingly has more data than just about anybody. They have a lot of power. OCLC increasingly “owns” the bibliographic data created by its membership. Ironically, this data — in both the case of Google and OCLC — is not freely available, even when the data was created for the benefit of the wider whole. I see this movement akin to the movement of a pendulum swinging one way and then the other. On my more pessimistic days I view it as a battle. On my calmer days I see it as a natural tendency, a give and take. Many librarians I know are in the profession, not for the money, but to support some sort of cause. Intellectual freedom. The right to read. Diversity. Preservation of the historical record. If I have a cause it then is about the free and equal access to information. This is why I advocate open access publishing, open source software, and Net Neutrality. When data and information is “owned” and “sold” an environment of information have’s and have not’s manifests itself. Ultimately, this leads to individual gain but not necessarily the improvement of the human condition as a whole.

The Digital Dark Age continues – We, as a society, are continuing to create a Digital Dark Age. Considering all of the aspects of librarianship, the folks who deal with preservation, conservation, and archives have the toughest row to hoe. It is ironic. On one hand there is more data and information available than just about anybody knows what to do with. On the other hand, much of this data and information will not be readable, let alone available, in the foreseeable future. Somebody is going to want to do research on the use of blogs and email. What libraries are archiving this data? We are writing reports and summaries in binary and proprietary formats. Such things are akin to music distributed on 8-track tapes. Where are the gizmos enabling us to read these formats? We increasingly license our most desired content — scholarly journal articles — and in the end we don’t own anything. With the advent of Project Gutenberg, Google Books, and the Open Content Alliance the numbers of freely available electronic books rival the collections of many academic libraries. Who is collecting these things? Do we really want to put all of our eggs into one basket and trust these entities to keep them for the long haul? The HathiTrust understand this phenomonon, and “Lot’s of copies keep stuff safe.” Good. In the current environment of networked information, we need to re-articulate the definition of “collection”.

Finally, regarding change. It manifests itself along a continuum. At one end is evolution. Slow. Many false starts. Incremental. At the other end is revolution. Fast. Violent. Decisive. Institutions and their behaviors change slowly. Otherwise they wouldn’t be the same institutions. Librarianship is an institution. Its behavior changes slowly. This is to be expected.

Meet your fellow LITA members, and participate in a conversation about what role LITA plays in the larger information, association, community-building, and technology- related landscape. What makes LITA unique? Special guests from other organizations that are involved in the technology related landscape will also attend and participate in the discussion.

Rick Lugg and associates from R2 have graciously offered their services and will be facilitating the discussion.

Other participating organizations include:
American Society for Information Sciences & Technology (ASIS&T) http://www.asis.org/
Association for Library Collections & Technical Services (ALCTS) http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/alcts/alcts.cfm
Digital Library Federation http://www.diglib.org/
OCLC http://www.oclc.org
Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/rusa/index.cfm
TAIGA http://www.taigaforum.org/

Please join the LITA Membership Development Committee and members from around the country for networking, good cheer, and great fun! Expect lively conversation and excellent drinks.

Lodo’s Bar & Grill
1946 Market Street
Denver, CO, 80202
303.293.8555

Learn about design process for managing digital projects in libraries, usability theory and methodology. Receive practical steps to implement a design process in your own library plus a copy of presenter Brenda Reeb’s latest book, Design Talk: Understanding the roles of usability practitioners, web designers, and web developers in user centered web design.

You do not need to attend the Midwinter Meeting to register for the workshop. Visit the ALA Conference Services Web site to register: http://www.ala.org/ala/conferencesevents/upcoming/midwinter/2009/registration.cfm

To add a workshop to your existing Midwinter registration:
Call ALA Registration at 1-800-974-3084
OR use your log in and password to access your existing Midwinter registration using the online registration form: http://www.ala.org/Template.cfm?Section=Events&Template=/CFApps/Experient/Redirect.cfm
Add events in the “Your Events” section; check out and pay for the events you’ve added.

You’ll find those plans here, on the LITA Wiki.

One of the other ten IGs has since noted that it’s not meeting at all during Midwinter.

That leaves nine unaccounted for–nine IGs for which one of the following must be true:

• The IG doesn’t actually exist, or has no chair, or the chair never reported an email address to LITA.
• The chair won’t deal with email or lists because, you know, they’re so 20th century.
• The (repeated) request to provide a one-paragraph email response required an unconscionable amount of effort and was ignored.
• The IG has no plans.
• The IG has no interest in attracting new members.

Which of those is true for each of the nine remaining non-responding IGs? Your guess is as good as mine.

NOTE: Don’t send me more plans. Update the wiki directly. It’s not that hard.