We appreciate the LITA membership’s patience as we work to find a solution for future LITA governance meetings that will allow for member participation. The meeting agenda and documents are posted in the LITA Executive Committee Connect Group in the 2012 LITA-Executive-Committee-Spring-Meeting folder; look for Minutes from the meeting to posted publicly in the LITA Executive Committee Connect Group within the coming weeks.

Please leave a comment or contact the LITA office, lita (at) ala.org, with any questions you may have.

What is LITA?

LITA is the technology division of “the oldest, largest, and most influential library association in the world.” Structurally, this is what sets LITA apart from all of the other organizations, communities, and conferences that serve those of us who are committed to libraries and to efficient and innovative uses of technology. LITA’s status within ALA means we are in a unique position, and have a unique responsibility, to encourage libraries and ALA to make wise decisions about technology and to use technology wisely when making non-technical decisions.

LITA is also an impressive assembly of people who work in and in behalf of libraries. Meeting many of you in person and following many others’ work online, as well as learning more about the people we have elected to LITA’s board, has made me eager to participate in its governance.

LITA has the best members anywhere, but it’s struggled with retention. How will you make the members feel supported by, and connected to, LITA?

When you’re given an opportunity to do work that matters and results in something tangible, you develop a sense of ownership and loyalty toward the entity that provided you with that opportunity. You also make the world a marginally better place, and you’re happier for it.

The board’s responsibility is to help LITA allocate its resources effectively, and its members’ energy and expertise are unquestionably its most valuable. There are innumerable ways in which each of us has the capacity to change libraries for the better. The more of that LITA helps us do, the more likely we’ll be to renew our memberships and recruit additional members to join us.

If you could focus on one effort during your time as LITA Director, what would that be? What one thing most needs your attention?

Two words, but it’s one effort: simplicity and transparency. That’s what makes anything more accessible, and LITA is no exception.

I think two of the most famous maxims about simplicity apply: We need to focus on making LITA as simple as possible (though no simpler), and we need to focus on explaining LITA simply (because if we can’t, it means we don’t really understand it). We also need to be willing to provide that simple explanation to anyone who’s interested in hearing it.

Given the current financial conditions, many LITA members are unable to travel to conferences. What are your views on the use of technology to enable virtual attendance to various LITA meetings and functions?

Short answer: I’m 100% in favor of enabling virtual attendance.

Real answer: I think our individual financial resources and our interest in virtual participation are separate issues, and I think it’s important to see it that way. For one thing, if you conflate these ideas then it’s almost impossible not to create a tiered membership that views virtual attendance as a sort of adjunct to “real” participation. As a librarian, I’m committed to obviating this kind of tiering, and as a technologist I love finding ways to help people get the most out of every mode of communication, including online and face-to-face.

What new collaborative opportunities between LITA and other divisions or round tables would you like to see happen?

What I would most like is for LITA to provide more opportunities for collaborative opportunities, for LITA to become the library world equivalent of Silicon Valley. We have an enormous capacity and inclination for collaborating effectively in unexpected ways. My goal is for LITA to provide the freedom and the resources that nurture the kind of activities I mentioned above, those intersections of librarianship and technology that ultimately help to make the world a better place.

For more about Brett, see his LITA election page.

What is LITA?

LITA is a community of library and information professionals of all stripes working together to explore the ways technology can enhance the services we provide.

LITA has the best members anywhere, but it’s struggled with
retention. How will you make the members feel supported by, and connected to, LITA?

This is a tough question. LITA is an organization both for and by its members. You get out of LITA what you put into it, and each member ought to be as responsible as the next for communication, and for embodying the supportive, welcoming, productive ethos that we love about LITA.

That said, “Ask not what LITA can do for you” isn’t probably the most effective sales pitch when membership renewal time comes around. When I look at the value that I get out of ITaL (especially now that it’s OA!), LITA-L, conference sessions, IG meetings, and (dead serious here) LITA happy hours, my membership dollars feel very well spent. Which segues nicely into numbers 3 and 4…

If you could focus on one effort during your time as LITA Director, what would that be? What one thing most needs your attention?

I’d be interested in exploring a concerted member-driven marketing and communications effort. LITA staff do a terrific job of promoting the association and our events, but by necessity speak with an official voice. I’d like to see a communications committee that could take responsibility for LITA’s blog, Twitter account, etc. and begin pulling together all of the fantastic work of the association and its members. I think that a coherent and ongoing voice documenting the day-to-day accomplishments and concerns of our members would provide a powerful illustration of the value and vitality of the organization.

Given the current financial conditions, many LITA members are unable to travel to conferences. What are your views on the use of technology to enable virtual attendance to various LITA meetings and functions?

Another softball, eh?

I feel that all appropriate measures should be taken to ensure that open meetings are as open as possible, and to ensure that LITA membership has value even when members aren’t able to travel to meetings.

This is a very thorny problem, and not just for the legal reasons addressed at the recent LITA board meeting (see Andromeda’s post for her analysis). Here’s a no doubt incomplete list of issues as I see them:

1. Technology – Yes, it is 2012. Yes, we still cannot rely on sufficient reliable bandwidth to stream meetings and sessions from our conference locations. The vagaries of convention center bandwidth mean that we often won’t know what’s possible until we fire up a webcam at the start of a meeting. Under these conditions, we can’t responsibly give our members the expectation that they can reliably attend our sessions virtually. If you had stayed home from this past Midwinter under the assumption that you’d be able to view and interact with meetings in real-time, you would have been sorely disappointed, but not for lack of trying by LITA members on-site.
2. Privacy – There is a big difference between asking someone to volunteer on a committee and asking someone to do that committee work in a video live-streamed to the entire Internet and archived on a third-party for-profit video service. Yes, the work of our board and committees should be transparent to our membership, but many people have legitimate reasons why they may not want their voice or likeness broadcast willy-nilly, and I would never want these concerns to keep someone from volunteering for LITA.
3. Revenue – LITA relies on income from event attendance. Yes, almost all of LITA’s meetings are open meetings, but historically they have been open to paid conference attendees, with minutes available to the membership at large. When we make the decision to stream everything, we no longer give members as much incentive to attend in person. Again, I say this as a strong supporter of enabling virtual attendance. But for the association to remain strong, we’ll have to find new sources of revenue to replace event income, or figure out how to make LITA function as a leaner organization than it already is.
4. Quality – UStream+Twitter?Being there. We can and should investigate tools to help make virtual attendance at LITA events as robust as in-person attendance. But at least for right now, it isn’t the same. If we can’t bring you the hallway conversations and happy hour virtually, you’re missing out.

These are problems that we need to solve. And these are areas where I think it’s LITA’s duty to ALA and to the profession to lead the way. Perhaps we turn the problem on its head by making everything virtual first and then porting it back to the in-person events. Find ways to provide appropriate access for members, and look for reasonable opportunities to monetize quality virtual offerings. But we will have to solve these problems deliberately and systematically, because they bear directly on the health and future of the association. I would urge LITA members to engage with the full range of issues implicated here, and to resist the temptation to mistake the absence of an immediate solution for a lack of commitment to transparency.

What new collaborative opportunities between LITA and other divisions or round tables would you like to see happen?

I’ve been really impressed with the recent work of LITA’s Program Planning Committee. Abigail Goben and company have an incredible number of sessions coming up at Annual that LITA is co-sponsoring with other divisions and round tables. I’d like to see this trend continue, for LITA to position itself as a resource for the rest of ALA on tech topics.

This does get tricky though, and I wouldn’t want to sugar-coat it. At present, LITA’s operation is dependent on revenues not just from membership, but from events. In both of these areas, we’re often in effect competing with other divisions and professional organizations for the same shrinking pool of revenue. The most important issue we need to collaborate on with our peer organizations is growing that pool, and bringing greater coherence to the slate of organizations and professional development opportunities we offer.

Heck, I’d really like to see LITA collaborating with Code4Lib.

For more about Cody, see his LITA election page.

What is LITA?

To me, LITA is a community of innovators, leaders, technologists and liaisons to one another and those outside of the community. LITA is also an association, which means that people voluntarily come together with similar purposes to share an interest or activity. I believe that people join LITA because they want to learn something, help their colleagues and improve the library profession as a whole. They know that together they can make a difference and have greater impact than if they worked alone.

LITA has the best members anywhere, but it’s struggled with
retention. How will you make the members feel supported by, and connected to, LITA?

I believe that there are many additional things that can be done to support potential and current LITA members:

1. Involve enthusiastic, active members who have already embraced
   LITA’s mission and values in making new members feel welcome. They
   are knowledgeable, involved and committed to LITA. Active members
   can serve as role models for new members as well as those who have
   watched from the sidelines. There could be a buddy system, a new
   member mentoring program, or even a phone call or simple letter of
   welcome from an active member to a new member. Making new members
   feel important at the onset of their joining LITA is critical.
2. Recognize more frequently the outstanding contributions of LITA
   members, whether or not that work is directly associated with LITA. This recognition doesn’t have to be through formal award processes, but I’d like to see new models of sharing and appreciating the outstanding things we do for our profession and one another.
3. Emphasize that a benefit to joining LITA is about expanding your network and circle of influence, and even having some fun while doing it. The LITA Happy Hour is a great example, and I’d like to see more programs that encourage networking, engaging others and having fun with like-minded individuals.
4. Ask current and potential members their goals. I think the best way to get LITA members to commit is to get them to participate in activities that will further their goals and those of the profession. If we don’t know their goals, we can’t easily create additional meaningful and relevant training opportunities or events.

I believe that if current and future LITA members feel that they have learned both practical and innovative new things, if they are able to participate in workshops or events that meet their goals, if they have expanded their network, and if they feel connected to LITA more by engaging with active members, those LITA members will feel inspired to participate in new ways, will renew their membership and encourage others to join.

If you could focus on one effort during your time as LITA Director, what would that be? What one thing most needs your attention?

If I have to choose one area, I would like to focus my effort in moving forward online programming and the communication about such opportunities. Since member retention is a challenge for LITA, providing more opportunities for member participation is key. LITA members could share their knowledge and experience in teaching a greater variety of workshops, webinars and other types of online programming than what is currently being offered. With additional online programs, pricing can also be more flexible for those in libraries with differing financial situations.

Given the current financial conditions, many LITA members are unable to travel to conferences. What are your views on the use of technology to enable virtual attendance to various LITA meetings and functions?

I think that utilizing technology to enable virtual attendance is both fantastic and crucial to LITA’s future. In order for people to feel engaged and connected with LITA, providing options for participation is essential whether face-to-face or virtual. I applaud LITA’s recent efforts to stream meetings, capture video and audio whenever possible and encourage participation. I’d like to see LITA become the leader and a role model in this area for other divisions within ALA.

What new collaborative opportunities between LITA and other divisions or round tables would you like to see happen?

Every division within ALA could benefit from collaborating with LITA on technology standards, best practices, and other technology recommendations. I would like to see LITA implement some sort of liaison program to each of the divisions and many of the committees and groups within those divisions as well as many of the ALA offices. One mutually beneficial partner could be the Learning Round Table which promotes continuing education, helps people network with other continuing education providers for the exchange of ideas, concerns and solutions, serves as a source and advocates for the continuation of education. For example, I’d like to see LITA participate in their Annual Training Showcase.

You can learn more about Rachel at her LITA election page.

1) What is LITA?

LITA is my Tribe. We are Librarians Innovating Technology
Awesomesauce. Well, so much for glib answers

More seriously, LITA is LITA members. We are all doing nifty things with technology.

As an Association, our IGs put on a boatload of conference programming, including:

• “here’s cool stuff to try”
• “attend this pre-conference and walk out with something implemented for your library”
• “here’s the direction we see technology in libraries is heading”

Our committees manage the programs and focus efforts to produce worthwhile educational events and content. We coordinate or co-present a bunch of awards and scholarships and we are about educating and improving libraries and library services through technology.

–What is LITA?

LITA is where the technology users, super users, administrators, and creators mingle, keep tabs on each other, and throw around ideas for improving the library experience.

Long story short: LITA is you and the awesome stuff you do.

2) LITA has the best members anywhere, but it’s struggled with retention. How will you make the members feel supported by, and connected to, LITA?

LITA has had its share of organizational challenges and we are making strides to present our efforts in a more modern wrapper; but that is not enough.

I want to radically open internal communications and push the bounds of ALA policy (which constrains and encompasses LITA policy). I will encourage interested-member participation in any conversation within LITA by pushing for posts which do not touch on issues of personal privacy (which is the main constraint applied by ALA policy) to be publicly available and pledge to follow up on discussion points raised but not satisfactorily addressed. I feel the membership *has* spoken, everything I have done on LITA Board has been informed by what I have heard from members.

When the membership speaks, LITA must listen and take appropriate action.

I invite all LITA members – past, present, and future – to let me know what you feel LITA can do for you. I will work to make it happen and I will get you into a space where you can work toward that goal with me.

3) If you could focus on one effort during your time as LITA President, what would that be? What one thing most needs your attention?

Only one thing? I see two biggies, which I will list in order of priority:

Communication:

LITA has a plethora of communication channels – LITA-L, LITAblog, lita.org, ALA Connect, IG email lists, ad nauseam – each with their own strengths and weaknesses. LITA does not have one central channel which incorporates all these other channels; how do we each know what everyone else is doing?

We need to get our organizational communication house in order, provide member-customizable ways of taming the LITA-firehose, and get the word out about the great stuff we do.

Revenue generating programming:

Yes, I said it: “revenue generating.” LITA is currently one of the smaller ALA Divisions and we cannot (and should not!) balance the finances directly through member dues. Dues are plenty high enough already.

The LITA Program Planning Committee had a banner year for program proposals this year. Several of those selected for Annual (and several of those not selected too) have been suggested as high-demand programs that would appeal both to LITA members and to librarians and library staff at large. These programs could be presented outside a traditional face to face conference (such as Midwinter or Annual) with a relatively low overhead and low cost to attendees (with a suitable discount to LITA members). Other ALA Divisions do this regularly, LITA can too.

Communication, inviting member participation by open discussion, and revenue generating programs are LITA’s big needs in the short–term.

4) Given the current financial conditions, many LITA members are unable to travel to conferences. What are your views on the use of technology to enable virtual attendance to various LITA meetings and functions?

Technology has developed enough that physical collocation is no longer required for effective presentations, discussions, and decision-making. A few years back the LITA Electronic Participation Implementation Task Force worked up an cheat-sheet suggesting possible tools for various participation scenarios, which would need just a little updating to keep up with new tools available.
LITA IGs have already had virtual meetings with good results, see the ALA Connect space for the Mobile Computing IG Virtual Meeting at #alamw12.

This spring the LITA Board has been holding semi-monthly virtual meetings to get the governance business done, allowing time for tasks which are more appropriate to face to face meetings (from brainstorming to final tweaking).

Virtual is the now and the future, LITA should jump in with both feet and virtualize or hybridize everything which makes sense.

5) What new collaborative opportunities between LITA and other divisions or round tables would you like to see happen?

LITA has always been a collaborative Division. We have had MARBI (Machine-Readable Bibliographic Information) Joint committee which spans ALCTS, LITA, & RUSA for a long time. In the last few years LITA partnered with PLA to bring a public-library flavored Top Tech Trends session to the last PLA conference.

While I was on the OITP Advisory Committee, OITP requested a formal LITA representative on the advisory committee, which is now one of the liaison duties of the LITA Councilor. This tight formal relationship between LITA and the Office for Information Technology Policy at the Washington Office puts LITA right at the forefront of IT Policy monitoring and gives us a seat at the table when federal IT policy gets wonky.

What other collaborations might be appropriate?

I would team LITA up more closely with NMRT to keep our awareness of the skills new ALA members bring to the Association – and recruit those new members whose interests include using, adapting, and building technologies to support their library services. For the leadership-inclined, LITA could easily team up with LLAMA and co-sponsor a technology leadership series. On the assistive technologies front, LITA could team up with ASCLA to bring a broader awareness of specialized technologies and how they interplay with more “traditional” library technologies.

Technology is embedded all over ALA and its Divisions, LITA is uniquely positioned to inform and educate ALA members and interested library personnel on the strengths and challenges technology can provide people as they try to improve their libraries and library services.

***
For more information on Aaron, check out his Connect profile and his posts on LITAblog.

1) What is LITA?

This question seems like it should have an obvious answer, but it can be elusive. LITA is a professional organization. LITA is a home for anyone who considers herself an advocate of technology in libraries. LITA is … what? At its heart, LITA is its members–all its members: people who are linked by an interest in or passion for technology in libraries, however they define it. This array of definitions is exactly what makes LITA hard to define. The bottom line is: as reflected in our long and shifting list of Interest Groupss, LITA is what we–the members–make it.

2) LITA has the best members anywhere, but it’s struggled with retention. How will you make the members feel supported by, and connected to, LITA?

Our membership data indicates that many ALA members join LITA but don’t stay. That says to me that we either piqued their interest with programming and lost them somewhere along the way, or LITA fell prey to “second division syndrome.” Last year’s data indicate that some 76% of LITA members are members of another ALA division. In tight economic times, we have to prove our value to members outside programming and publications that are open to all ALA members by being an engaging community centered around the technologies we use in our libraries. LITA’s Interest Group structure is a wonderful tool for this; as we say in LITA 201, “Don’t see it? Make it!”

3) If you could focus on one effort during your time as LITA President, what would that be? What one thing most needs your attention?

I want to continue to close the gap between LITA governance and membership by making all Board activities visible to members and by working toward systematic leadership training. Leadership skills learned in LITA translate directly into the workplace, and systematic transfer of these skills from our veteran leaders to our members-at-large has not happened. When we welcome members into leadership roles in our organization, we do not have the luxury of time to give them a year to learn the ropes. People stepping into leadership roles should be given clear guidelines and expectations for getting their (clearly defined) work accomplished. Concomitantly, members stepping into Committee and IG roles should also have clear expectations and should be able to see the path from Committee/IG member to chair to Board member, should they have an interest.

4) Given the current financial conditions, many LITA members are unable to travel to conferences. What are your views on the use of technology to enable virtual attendance to various LITA meetings and functions?

The reasons most often given for not offering virtual components to programming are economic. LITA is a small division, and as such doesn’t have extra funds available to contract with a company outside ALA, as other divisions have done. That said, there are myriad tools available, inside ALA and freely available on the Internet, that can be harnessed to do this. The key, again, is planning for this in a systematic and continual way, not the seat-of-our-pants way it’s been done in the past. Although LITA’s seat-of-our-pants nature is something I’m very proud of!

5) What new collaborative opportunities between LITA and other divisions or round tables would you like to see happen?

Collaborative opportunities abound, and I look forward to encouraging and pursuing them as LITA President. Technology is pervasive in our profession, and integral to getting our work done; partnerships could be made with most any division or round table. Joint Interest Groups are a great member-driven way to connect two Divisions and give these groups resources for meetings and programming at conferences. ALA Connect spaces for Joint IGs or for more informal Communities afford us the opportunity to collaborate between conferences. LITA members have played integral roles in ALA-level task forces, committees and work groups. Closing the gap between members and the board and providing members with systematic leadership training will insure that LITA members will continue to be the go-to tech people for ALA as well as its Divisions and Round Tables.

***

For more information on Cindi, check out her LITA Election page.

The 2012 theme is: New World of Data: Discover. Connect. Remix.

Due Date for proposals: February 17, 2012.

The committee is especially interested in presentations highlighting projects that are experimental or involve risk-taking.

Find additional information and submit a proposal at: http://connect.ala.org/node/164487.

LITA: Libraries. Innovation. Technology. Awesomeness: Choose your own adventure!*

We probably knew this on the day of the meeting, but “Choose Your Own Adventure” is a registered trademark, so this is probably a good place to start with the discussion.

You are invited to virtually join the LITA members present in Dallas for the LITA Town Meeting – Monday 1/23 from 8-10am CST.  Instructions and links for how to participate virtually will be posted to the LITA Blog (http://litablog.org) approximate 30 minutes before the session starts.

We will be using UStream (audio only) and ALA Connect Chat to facilitate virtual participation.  We will stream the audio for the outbound channel – so virtual participants can hear the general introduction and overview and then break out into three streams – one on each topic – so that the discussion in the room can be heard.  Remote participants can log in to ALA Connect (http://connect.ala.org/) chat to send questions and comments to a discussion moderator who will share those with the participants in the room.

No account is required to access the audio streams.  However to participate in the chat, you must have an account set up in ALA Connect.  You do not have to be a member of ALA or LITA to create an account in ALA Connect.(http://connect.ala.org/user/register)

We also encourage you to send in questions for the LITA Leadership.  Those can be sent in in advance (post on the LITA blog in comments (http://litablog.org/2012/01/lita-president-elect-zoe-stewart-marshall-hosts-the-lita-town-meeting/#respond) or reply to this posting with your question.  Or you can send in your questions the day of the Town Meeting through any of the chat streams. Or you can submit your questions via Twitter – please use the hash tag #LITATM12 – so we will be sure to see them.

There will be three general topics for discussion:

*what is the value that participation in professional associations in general and LITA in particular provide;

* how LITA can provide support for developing leadership skills in emerging technology leaders;

* where and how should LITA provide support for development of technology skills.

My thanks to the LITA members who have volunteered to wrangle the software and equipment needed to facilitate virtual participation!

Please do plan to join us and help us beta test ways to improved and enhance virtual participation in the work of the association. Your input on these important topics is greatly appreciated.

Zoe Stewart-Marshall
LITA Vice President/President-Elect

We thank LITA members for their continued interest in and support of the Association’s publishing initiatives.

More information about the upcoming changes to ITAL will be available at the ITAL website.

When/Where is the Conference?
2012 Annual Conference, Anaheim, CA: June 21–26, 2012

What kind of topics are we looking for?
Anything relating to libraries and technology! (That narrows it down, right?) A few ideas might include: Comparing two or three library tools (LibGuides vs Google Pages), (Un)Successful Implementation of a New Technology, From the Trenches of an ILS Migration, Technology for Marketing, Marketing Technology, Managing Technology, Project Management, How to Quickly Build a Web App that looks Decent, Managing People and Technology, Supporting Continuing Ed for Technology, Video Creation and Editing, Including/Leveraging Users, Tech Tools for Data Management, etc etc etc. Please keep an eye on the LITA Listserv for a poll for more ideas soon!

When are proposals due?
August 5, 2011

How I do submit?
Fill out this form

When will I have an answer?
The committee will be reviewing proposals in August, final decisions will be made in September

Do I have to be a member of ALA/LITA/an IG/a committee?
No! We welcome proposals from anyone who feels they have something to offer regarding library technology. Unfortunately, we are not able to provide financial support for speakers.

Got another question?
Please feel free to email me (abigailgoben@gmail.com) and the group will figure it out.

New This Week

Dean, James E. Walker Library,  Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro ,  TN

Visit the LITA Job Site for more available jobs and for information on submitting a  job posting.

Top Technology Trends

Sunday June 26, 1:30-3:30 pm. Featured trendsters include Lorcan Dempsey, Nina McHale, Clifford Lynch, Monique Szendze, and Jennifer Wright. Hashtag #ttt11

LITA President’s Program: Building the Future:  Addressing Library Broadband Connectivity Issues in the 21st Century

Sunday, June 26, 4-5:30pm. Features Robert Bocher, Technology Consultant with the Wisconsin State Library, who will explore the broadband landscape and how ALA is working with Internet2 to address the broadband needs of libraries, schools and higher education.

The Ultimate Debate: “Library Web Scale Discovery Services: Paradigm Shift or More of the Same?”

Monday, June 27, 1:30-3:30. The classic showdown returns, featuring Roy Tennant, Marshall Breeding, Andrea Shurr, and Anne Prestamo.

In addition to the programs above, the LITA Board meetings (Saturday, 9-12 and Monday, 1:30-5:30) will also be streamed live.

We’ll see you online!

• Zoe Stewart-Marshall, Vice-President/President-Elect
• Lauren Pressley, David Lee King, and John Blyberg, Directors-at-Large

LITA members elected as ALA Councilors-at-Large include: Diane Chen, Jenny Emanuel, Mary Anne Hodel, David Hurley, Julius Jefferson, Wei Jeng-Chu, Em Claire Knowles, Charles Kratz, Mike Martin, Bobbi Newman, Andrew Pace, Mary Pagliero Popp, and Holly Tomren.

The Tech Set includes ten printed books, ten wikis, and ten podcasts by the following authors:

• Marshall Breeding (Next-Gen Library Catalogs)
• Sarah Houghton-Jan (Technology Training in Libraries)
• Jason Griffey (Mobile Technology and Libraries)
• Lauren Pressley (Wikis for Libraries)
• Robin M. Hastings (Microblogging and Lifestream in Libraries)
• Cliff Landis (A Social Networking Primer for Librarians)
• Steve Lawson (Library Camps and Unconferences)
• Kelly Nicole Czarnecki (Gaming in Libraries)
• Connie Crosby (Effective Blogging for Libraries)
• Thomas Sean Casserley Robinson (Library Videos and Webcasts)

The Award Committee especially appreciated The Tech Set use of “a creative, innovative approach” and the series “covering a wide variety of timely topics, providing a way to keep the topics updated and interactive, and for being written in an easy-to-understand manner for readers both at the beginning of their quest for information and those more advanced who want an overview and updated information online.”

Kroski is Emerging Technologies and Web Services Librarian at Barnard College as well as a writer, educator, international conference speaker, and blogger. She is an adjunct faculty member teaching emerging technologies at Long Island University, Pratt Institute, and San Jose University.

Karen Starr, LITA President, said “The expertise and work of Ellyssa Kroski and the ten Tech Set authors embody LITA’s leadership role in enabling and exploring new technologies for the use of librarians and information professionals in the 21st century. Congratulations to each of them for the recognition of their collective expertise, contribution to the core library and information knowledge base, and its impact on the national and local library and information communities.”

Visit Neal-Shuman for more information about The Tech Set or contact Kathryn Suarez at Suarez.kathryn (at) neal-schuman.com.

With support from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Dr. Cohen leads the development of the free, open-source Zotero (http://zotero.org) software for managing and sharing research sources. Zotero is currently implemented as a set of Web browser and word processor plug-ins that can synchronize citations and other information with a public server, which also serves as a social network and discovery platform for fellow researchers. Work is currently underway to develop a stand-alone implementation of Zotero for Windows, Linux and Macintosh operating systems as well as plug-ins for a broader range of Web browsers.

Cohen’s scholarship includes the exploration of digital humanities and pursuing new ways to collect and preserve history on the Web. He has directed several archival projects, including the September 11 Digital Archive, ECHO: Exploring & Collecting History Online, and the Hurricane Digital Memory Bank: Preserving the Stories of Katrina, Rita, and Wilma. Cohen is the author of four books and has delivered dozens of papers and featured presentations at venues of interest to library technologists.

“I am incredibly humbled by this recognition,” Dr. Cohen said, “and I enormously appreciate the collaborative work that I have been fortunate to be a part of with librarians, technologists, scholars and especially my extraordinarily talented colleagues at the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University.”

The award, which is jointly sponsored by OCLC, is given for research relevant to the development of information technologies, especially work that shows promise of having a positive and substantive impact on any aspect(s) of the publication, storage, retrieval and dissemination of information, or the processes by which information and data is manipulated and managed. The awardee receives $2,000, a citation and an expenses paid trip to the ALA Annual Conference in New Orleans, where the award will be presented on June 26.

Members of the 2011 LITA/OCLC Kilgour Award committee are: Michael Witt, Purdue University (chair); Patrick J. Mullin, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (past chair); Zinthia Briceno-Rosales, Washington State University; Ronald A. Peterson, University of Delaware; H. Frank Cervone, Purdue University-Calumet; Mona C. Couts, LITA board liaison; and Roy Tennant, OCLC liaison.

+More information on the Kilgour Award and other LITA awards

The work of Vernor Vinge pushes information and technology to its incredible, but possible, conclusions. In A Fire UponThe Deep and A Deepness in the Sky, Vinge examines the concept of the technological singularity, a theoretical point where machine intelligence overtakes human intelligence, and does so in ways that play with information systems and processes. In Rainbows End, Vinge explores one potentially very real future for libraries in which we live in a world of complete information immersion. Jason Griffey interviews Vernor Vinge; futurist, author, thinker, and visionary. This program was recorded live on Saturday, January 8th 2011 at 1pm in the San Diego Convention Center. Sponsored by LITA’s Imagineering Interest Group.

LITA is a broad organization, encompassing librarians from all types of libraries, doing all kinds of work, involved with every type of information technology imaginable. The main goal of LITA is to help people make connections. It’s easy to get boxed in to your specific work, and to cut yourself off from people doing different things, but through LITA, you can stay current and aware of things going on throughout the field. LITA is about people, and according to Andrew Pace, head of IT at NCSU libraries and an active member of LITA, it’s one of the best professional networking organizations in ALA.

There are a lot of ways to get involved with LITA, and the best way to get started is to reach out and contact the chair of a committee or interest group that sounds compelling to you. Involvement is welcome and LITA members will do their best to help you find the right place in the organization. The first place to start is on lita.org, where you can find a list of Committees and Interest Groups. Interest Groups are an easy way to get involved: If you find something that sounds interesting, get in touch with the chair to find out more. You can start your own interest group if you don’t see your interest represented already.

Committees usually require a two year commitment, and while some do involve travel to conferences, virtual participation is becoming easier. Committee work revolves around outreach, education, scholarship, membership, and governance. It’s easy to get involved right away, and there is a volunteer application on the ALA website. The organization seeks balanced committee membership, with a good mix of established and new LITA members, and are always welcome to involvement from new members.

LITA sponsors the National Forum, Regional Institutes, and Pre-Conferences, which offer another way to get involved, and to learn interesting things that will make you a more effective librarian. The National Forum planning committee is a great way to get involved with LITA, and they are always looking for paper and presentation submissions.

Mentorship is a growing area in LITA: The organization is full of both digital natives and digital immigrants, and we both have things to teach each other. LITA is interested in connecting people who can provide each other mutual benefit. If you’re interested in being involved, contact Don Lemke with information about what you have to offer and what you are interested in learning in return.

If you are at ALA Midwinter this year and want to find out more, attend the Town Hall meeting, Monday morning from 8 am to 10 am. The meeting will be in the Convention Center room 01A, and breakfast will be provided (free food!). It’s a great chance to hear about what the organization is doing, and to contribute your ideas for the organization (I can personally attest that when I attended my first ALA Midwinter meeting as a young student who had no idea what she was doing, the people at the LITA town hall meeting were warm and welcoming, and really seemed to appreciate my input, so don’t be shy!).

LITA Happy Hour and LITA Eats are also important ways to get involved with LITA. These events offer less formal ways to get to know each other and make connections. We can let go and sit and talk with each other outside of a professional arena. This is where we really get to know each other, and it’s a great place to meet people and begin to find out how you can fit it in in the organization.

The most important thing to remember about LITA is that the people involved are what make it useful and fun. Your contributions will be welcome, however you can contribute. Because of it’s broadness, there is certain to be something you’re interested in. All you have to do is reach out and contact a committee chair or interest group head to find out the best way to be involved. LITA is happy to help you find your place, and will gladly welcome you into the fold.

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You can also watch the video stream here.

Don’t forget, Roy Tennant’s keynote is available as well. Amy Bruckman’s opening keynote on Wikipedia and the nature of “truth” is coming soon….

Here’s a description of the talk, as well as the other keynotes. Tomorrow’s keynote by Ross Singer on “The Linked Data Cloud” will be posted and available as well on the LITA Forum show page.

Cuddy has served as a member of the LITA Board of Directors and the LITA Executive Committee. She has experience in programming, having served on the LITA National Forum Program Planning Committee, and in governance, having served as the Bylaws Committee chair and Board parliamentarian. “LITA members are innovators and leaders, and I feel very privileged to lead such a diverse group of librarians and library professionals. I look forward to developing methods to communicate the value of technology innovation for LITA members and for librarians at large. I will also work to cultivate LITA membership and create new opportunities for members’ professional growth,” said Cuddy.

This year LITA elected Adriene Lim, associate university librarian, Portland State University, Portland, Oregon, as LITA Councilor for a three year term. Newly elected Board Directors, who also will serve for three years, are Cindi Trainor, coordinator, Research and Instructional Services, Eastern Kentucky University, Richmond, Kentucky, and Jason Griffey, head of Library Information, University of Tennessee-Chattanooga, Lupton Library, Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Gregg Sylvis, Chair for the LITA Top Trends Committee kicked off the session.  Six panelists were  each to address current trends, imminent trends and long term trends (3-5 years out).

John Blyberg, Darien Library (CT), Assistant Director for Innovation and User Experience

Lorcan Dempsey, Vice President OCLC Research and Chief Strategist, OCLC

Jason Griffey, Head of Library Information Technology, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

Monique Sendze, IT Director Johnson County Library, Overland Park, Kansas

Cindy Trainor, Coordinator for Library Technology and Data Services, Eastern Kentucky University

Joan Frye Williams, IT Consultant

CURRENT TRENDS

Blyberg discussed the new world of  ”multilevel convergent media.”

• With the explosion of new devices and communication channels, people are finding new ways to describe, explain, and interact with the world around them, and the boundaries between personal and professional domains have been blurring.
• This has paved the way for a move to devices that are optimized across multiple applications to support diverse communication and information sharing needs.
• Now it is becoming possible to reach a new point of synergy where the total impact across applications is becoming greater than the sum of its parts.  For example, writing a research paper is not a very good experience on the iPhone but the iPad will work well for this and across many other critical applications.

Dempsey called out some of the changes relating to mobile devices and their implications.

• Much of the early development for mobile devices has related to the direct translation of the web applications to a mobile environment.Now there are opportunities to look at how services can be atomized and reconfigured.
• The web experience can be tied to physical locations, as with the QR codes found at the ProQuest booth.
• There is also the phenomenon of “microcoordination” or checking in to better manage space and logistical challenges.  For example, a quick call or IM can now be used to change the time or location of a personal or business meeting on the fly.

Griffey talked about how content is no longer tied to a container.

• In the past, the container (book, journal, etc.) has defined how the information has been consumed and displayed.
• Now we are starting to see “container sans interface.”  For example, users now expect the library catalog to look like Google, with less emphasis on the various types of information containers.
• Use of iPad with touch screen does not focus the user on containers but just surfaces the information.
• He feels that the touch screen is setting a new interface standard for browsing and exploring content, noting that after showing his iPad to his two-year-old daughter, she started to touch the screen of their TV expecting it to behave in the same way.

Sendze discussed the importance of libraries responding to the rapid evolution of mobile technologies in order to stay relevant to their users.

• It is applications and software that make iPhone different from competing devices and this will also distinguish the iPad from its emerging competitors.
• Libraries need to move aggressively into mobile applications and software as increasingly users will be coming to the library expecting to use their own devices rather than the library’s computers.

Trainor surfaced an increased emphasis user-driven collection development.

• Libraries need to be more about getting people to things rather than owning them.
• Many libraries were adding a complete set of MARC records from an ebook provider and then buying the books that they do not have in response to user demand.

Williams surfaced many of the changes that are being driven by the current economic environment.

• Economic dislocations have been the genesis of a new creative economy.  There has been an explosion of everything from niche researchers  to pastry chefs.  Typically, these business startups are hyper-local and home based.
• Libraries need to explore what can be done to create an optimal environment for these users. This is a significant change in mindset because being an incubator for these enterprises means supporting the messy, iterative activity that is needed to spark creativity.
• Rather than focusing on serving up content, libraries need to focus on being the foundation for a creative process.  It is akin to moving from a grocery store to a kitchen mentality.

IMMINENT TRENDS

Williams talked about the blurring between object descriptions and the actual object.

• There is a new practice called “fabbing” where 3D descriptions are facilitating the creation of the referenced object.  This means that the line is blurring between comprehensive information about a thing and the thing itself.
• Librarians to find new ways manage recall and rights for 3D e-versions of things, because the  e-world of libraries is flatter than the real world is.
• Librarians typically have not developed these types of design sensibilities needed to manage these e-objects effectively because the library world has traditionally been so text based.

Trainor called out the FaceBook privacy backlash and its implications.

• Openness in terms of technology and ideas could be impacted as many people are being more thoughtful about sharing their personal information.
• At the same time, there is an important piece of our cultural heritage that could be lost as it is not clear who if anyone would be in a position to preserve the rich tapestry of information that has been posted on Facebook.

Sendze talked about changes as more and more library technology infrastructure moves into the Cloud.

• This change has the potential to be very disruptive.
• It could significantly reduce library back room IT needs and it will likely mean that the IT function will need to be more embedded in the day-to-day work of library.

Griffey signaled the potential disruptive effects of low-cost e-Readers.

• Citing recent price drops for the Kindle and the Nook , $99 eInk reading devices could be a possibility in the upcoming holiday season.
• Low-cost or even disposable devices could ultimately be married with ebook content that is freely available on the web.

Dempsey talked about how new discovery layers are helping libraries to overcome the fragmentation of library resources.

• Users appreciate a Google-like single search box and faceted results, and they typically perceive that everything in the collection has been surfaced, while there are generally opportunities to expand elements of the collection that are made available in this fashion.
• There are also many other opportunities to surface content outside of the library collection such as Google Scholar and Google Books.
• A third dimension is surfacing resources not in the current collection that could be made available through Patron-driven ILL or on-demand purchasing.

Blyberg used Seth Godin’s term “the dip” to stage his prediction of new struggles with open source software.

• He indicated that many open source library projects were hitting a point where success reaches a plateau and progress gets harder and harder to achieve.
• Funding is one issue since library budgets are under significant stress and while grants have often provided for startup costs, they are typically not funding ongoing costs.
• Also, he indicated that open source solutions have in many cases failed to keep pace with the features and functionality offered by commercial vendors.

LONG TERM TRENDS

Griffey singled out 4G cellular infrastructure and its power to transform mobile applications.

• With speeds of 100 Megabits per second, it will provide ethernet capacity in your pocket.
• He talked about a new small rapid scanner developed in Japan that could ultimately allow quick scanning and OCR of Encyclopedia Brittanica or Oxford English Dictionary by a mobile device.
• Libraries will need to be prepared for these types of technology shifts in order to manage implications for library services and copyright.

Sendze anticipates an acceleration of profiling and the death of Internet anonymity.

• Users are freely giving over their personal information to search engines and these commercial providers are doing profiling and predictive analysis.
• Libraries are still focused on protecting user privacy, despite the fact that lots of data is now available that can be used to enhance the experience of their users.
• Users likely trust libraries to safeguard their personal information a lot more than they do commercial vendors and users will likely be open to their personal information being used to anticipate needs and to enhance their experience with the library.

Trainor predicted that ultimately physical copy scarcity would be gone.

• As the abundance of information continues to grow, scarcity is manifesting itself in new areas such as bandwidth.  Libraries should be helping to bridge these gaps for the benefit of all their users and society at large.
• In the end, it will also be up to libraries to add value in new ways rather than just securing content.  As an example, changes will be needed in library instruction when the only service point is the web and users are getting most of the resources they need for free.

Williams drew a comparison between the information industry and the energy industry.

• Similarities stem from the relationship between the suppliers and their customers in both sectors.
• Libraries are acting like niche green technology companies that are blazing down a new path, often propelled by grant funding. They are committed to building their own “information ecosystem” that is self-contained and pure and free from contaminants, like a locally-owned, socially conscious information utility.
• Resource and technology challenges abound and it is difficult to sustain investments in technology infrastructure for the long term.
• One potential impact could be an epidemic of “dataspills” that involves sensitive or personal information and potentially even crackdowns by the government.

Blyberg discussed the future transformations that are being driven by current economic pressures.

• Current economic pressures have brought a “come to Jesus moment” for all libraries.
• Many libraries have had to admit that they have very inefficient backend processes where significant benefits can be achieved through automation and process improvements.
• Libraries are discovering that they can still be true to what it means to be a library while sharpening their focus on transforming the user experience.

Dempsey called for a shift for libraries from managing supply to managing demand.

• He talked about the complex suite of systems and relationships for supplying information that are driving overhead and keeping libraries from focusing more of their energies on the user experience.
• Greater focus will be needed on the demand side such as helping users rank, relate, or recommend items.
• Embedding  resources in research environments and courseware  and building community around library resources will also derive significant benefits by integrating library resources into user workflows.
• Libraries also need to focus on sparking indirect discovery through surfacing Google material, curation and management of institutional outputs (IRs, etc), and search engine optimization.
• Only with continued focus on the demand side can libraries get to the ultimate desired state – where the mission of the library has become helping users to manage their own library.

~John Blyberg
~Lorcan Dempsey
~Jason Griffey
~Monique Sendze
~Cindi Trainor
~Joan Frye Williams

The session is moderated by Gregg Silvis, chair of the Top Tech Trends committee.

Watch below or visit ustream for the archived video.

Here is how the LITA Board would like to proceed.

1. The LITA Strategic Plan has been posted to ALA Connect http://connect.ala.org/node/105818. Members are encouraged to review the new LITA Strategic Plan and post your feedback to ALA Connect by Friday, June 25th.

2. The last 45-60 minutes of the Saturday LITA Board Meeting will be devoted to the LITA Strategic Plan. The Strategic Planning session of the LITA Board Meeting will be held in the Convention Center room 204A, Saturday, June 26 at approximately 11:30-12:15.  The LITA Board welcomes LITA members to the meeting if they wish to provide feedback in person (if you can’t make the meeting please provide feedback in ALA Connect http://connect.ala.org/node/105818). During the Strategic Planning session at the LITA Board meeting we will also identify which strategies we want to tackle in the next 18 months and assign those strategies to the appropriate committees, interest groups and task forces. The LITA Board will then work with the committees, interest groups and task forces to create action plans on how those groups plan to accomplish the strategy.

3. The LITA Board has asked the committees and interest groups to fill out and submit their completed Action Plans and submit them to the LITA Board two weeks prior to the Midwinter Meeting in January 2011. Board members will be available to assist the committees, interest groups and task forces in the completion of the Action Plans.

4. During the LITA Board session at the ALA Midwinter Meeting 2011, the LITA Board will review the submitted Action Plans to make sure all strategies that were identified as priorities in next 18 months are accounted for and if not how to proceed.

Please contact me if you have any questions.

Michelle Frisque
President, Library & Information Technology Association

One week before the conference, check the Showcase page for links to author bios and to actually view the presentations prior to the Showcase!  Presenters won’t be giving their presentation at ALA, but rather you’ll have an opportunity to get an overview and engage in small group conversation with presenters and other attendees.

Topics:

• Libraries MUST Have A New Electronic Content Access and Distribution Infrastructure  (Michael Porter)
• User Research on a Shoestring (Erin White and Susan Teague-Rector)
• Information Overload & Personal Information Management (Bohyun Kim)
• iPad and Tablet computers (David Lee King)
• Teaching with Twitter (Ellen Filgo)
• Qrcodes & Mobile Knowledge Networks (Bonnie Rosalen and Kelly Sattler)

This will be an expansion of LITA’s current standards initiatives which includes the work of the Standards Interest Group and the Standard’s Coordinator.

Charge:
To explore and recommend strategies and initiatives LITA can implement to become more active in the creation and adoption of new technology related standards that align with the library community. Propose an organizational structure that will support and sustain LITA’s increased involvement in the standards arena both within ALA and beyond.

To summarize the task force needs to determine:

• which standard organizations LITA should participate in examples include NISO, ISO, W3C, etc.
• how LITA can become actively involved in each of the identified organizations
• what kind of support LITA members would need to increase their involvement in standards creation
• how this new initiative can be sustained in the LITA organizational structure

Time Frame:
The task force should submit their final report before the ALA Midwinter Meeting in 2011.  A preliminary report should be submitted to the LITA Executive Board by October 15th, 2010.

Members:
A big thank you to the following members who have agreed to serve on this Task Force. They are:

• Yan Han, Chair
• Todd Carpenter
• Margaret Hazel
• Janel White
• George Fray
• Jennifer Hawkins
• Diane Hillman, LITA Standards Coordinator
• Colby Riggs, LITA OITP Representative
• David Nutty, current chair LITA Technology and Access
• Elena Soltau, incoming chair LITA Technology and Access
• Judy Jeng, co-chair Standards Interest Group
• Mona Couts, LITA Board Liaison

There are some great topics in the running, but we need your help to pick the top ones. VOTE today!

You can also suggest a topic that’s not on the list. It can be anything related to libraries and emerging technology, from social media to discovery platforms to open-source tools to using tech tools in new or innovative ways. Use your imagination!

Also, if you are interested in presenting on a topic yourself, please indicate that in the comments and you will be contacted with details following  the voting.

Don’t forget to VOTE by Friday, May 14, 2010.

1. Liaison ballot for ISO/FDIS 29383, Terminology policies — Development and implementation.

“This International Standard provides policy makers in governments, administration, non-profit and commercial organizations with guidelines and a methodology for the development and implementation of a comprehensive policy or strategy concerning the planning and management of terminology. This International Standard is designed for policy makers working in different environments, from language planning to for-profit companies.”

Deadline for comments to Cindy is May 18, 2010 .

2. ISO/NP 14641-1 , Electronic archiving – Specifications concerning the design and the operation of an information system for electronic information preservation.

This is a short turn-around ballot to provide comments for a liaison new work item proposal. Deadline for comments to Cindy is May 11, 2010.

“This proposal is to develop a standard providing a set of technical specifications and organizational policies to be implemented for capture, archival and access of Electronically Stored Information (ESI); ensuring legibility, integrity and traceability of this information for the duration of their preservation and use. This standard is applicable to permanent archives and therefore does not refer to systems in which users have the ability to substitute or alter ESI after capture.”

Since these are liaison ballots, NISO can only “recommend” a U.S. vote and provide comments. Feedback from ALA members will be provided to NISO, who will review and consider our feedback along with that received from numerous other voting members. Cindy can provide access to the documents only to ALA members—please contact her directly at HSLcindy@buffalo.edu (please copy me at metadata.maven@gmail.com so I can track LITA interest).

Diane I. Hillmann
LITA Standards Coordinator

Colleen Cuddy has been elected as 2010 LITA President-Elect; Jason Griffey and Cindi Trainor have been elected to serve 3 year terms as LITA Directors-at-large; Adriene Lim has been elected as Councilor.

In addition, the following LITA members have been elected to ALA Council: Michael Porter, Lauren Pressley, and Patrick Sweeney.

Visit the LITA web site for more information.

LITA’s Top Tech Trends session will also be part of PLA’s Virtual Conference, consisting of live programming chosen from among the highest rated in PLA’s session preference survey. The Virtual Conference will feature panel discussions, author interviews, interactive workshops, and chats with colleagues, all from the comfort of your computer.

• Check out the LITA web site for information on LITA Happy Hour and Exhibit Booth hours at PLA.
• Visit the PLA Conference site for more information and registration.

Dr. John Willinsky is Khosla Family Professor of Education at Stanford University and founder of the Public Knowledge Project (PKP). The Award committee chose Dr. Willinsky from a strong field of nominated leaders in the field.

The Public Knowledge Project (http://pkp.sfu.ca/) is dedicated to improving the scholarly and public quality of research. It operates through a partnership among the School of Education at Stanford University, the Simon Fraser University Library, the Canadian Centre for Studies in Publishing at Simon Fraser University, and the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia.

The Award Committee was impressed with the impact that the Project has had in the open access movement and in providing the leading open source software for journal and conference management publishing. The public Knowledge Project has the enviable distinction of having moved beyond R&D to become a highly successful suite of open source software (Open Journals System – OJS; Open Conference System – OCS; PKP Metadata Harvester, and, soon, Open Monograph Press – OMP). Over five thousand scholarly journals, for instance, use the Open Journals System (OJS). Dr. Willinsky is a tireless advocate for the role of libraries in supporting academic publishing in new ways and for the values of open access.

“I’m honored and delighted to be the recipient of the 2010 Frederick G. Kilgour Award” said Dr. Willinsky. “It is one of the great pleasures of my life to be able to work so closely with a terrific team of academic librarians on the Project and it means a great deal to me to make a small contribution to the libraries that have meant so much to me and my work.”

Members of the 2010 LITA/OCLC Kilgour Award committee are: Patrick J. Mullin, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Chair); Michael Gorman, university librarian emeritus, California State University, Fresno (past chair); Rene J. Erlandson, University of Nebraska at Omaha; William C. Kurt, University of Nevada – Reno; Andrea Tomlinson, Chemical Heritage Foundation; Mary Alice Ball, LITA board liaison; and Roy Tennant, OCLC liaison.

The purpose of the award is to recognize superior student writing and to enhance the professional development of students. The manuscript can be written on any aspect of libraries and information technology. Examples include digital libraries, metadata, authorization and authentication, electronic journals and electronic publishing, telecommunications, distributed systems and networks, computer security, intellectual property rights, technical standards, desktop applications, online catalogs and bibliographic systems, universal access to technology, library consortia and others.

At the time the unpublished manuscript is submitted, the applicant(s) must be enrolled in an ALA-accredited program in library and information studies at the masters or Ph.D. level.

To be eligible, applicants must follow the detailed guidelines and fill out the application form. Send the signed, completed forms by March 24, 2010, to Krista Clumpner, LITA/Ex Libris Student Writing Award Committee chair, Northern Michigan University, Lydia M. Olson Library, 1401 Presque Isle Ave., Marquette, MI 49855-5305. Submit the manuscript to Krista electronically at kclumpne@nmu.edu by March 24, 2010. The award will be presented at the LITA President’s Program during the 2010 ALA Annual Conference in Washington, DC.

New this year: submit a proposal for full 70 minute sessions OR “half” session slots as well as posters and preconferences.

The Committee is looking forward to reading your ideas on “The Cloud and the Crowd.”

http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/lita2010/

The 2010 Forum Planning Committee will review proposals starting in February 2010. You will be contacted about the status of your proposal by the end of March.

View the complete call for proposals for more info.

At today’s LITA Town Meeting we are going to review the the existing strategies and identifying missing strategies. During the Town Meeting we will break out into groups and each group will review one section. Each group will then perform the following tasks for their assigned section:

1. add possible strategies that are missing
2. identify which strategies are worth developing and incorporating into the future strategic plan and give them a time frame (can be complete in 1 year, 2-3 years or 3+ years)
3. identify the possible strategies that are essential to the future of LITA

The groups will reconvene and share the results of their discussion. The rest of the board can provide their thoughts as well.

You can also follow us via Twitter using #litath.

The draft strategic plan is on ALA Connect.

The first group of announcements has to do with special character sets and transliteration.

1. Systematic Review ISO 10754:1996, Extension of the Cyrillic alphabet coded character set for non-Slavic languages for bibliographic information interchange.

“This is version three of the standard that specifies a set of 93 graphic characters with their coded representations. It consists of a code table and a legend showing each graphic, its use and its name. Explanatory notes are also included. The character set is primarily intended for the interchange of information among data processing systems and within message transmission systems.”

The deadline for comments to Cindy is no later than Monday, Feb. 22, 2010.

2. Systematic Review ISO 233-3:1999, Transliteration of Persian characters into Latin characters.

“This part of ISO 233 establishes a simplified system for the transliteration of Persian characters into Latin characters. This simplification of the stringent rules established by ISO 233:1984 is especially intended to facilitate the processing of bibliographic information (e.g. catalogues, indices, citations, etc.”

The deadline for comments to Cindy is no later than Friday, Feb. 19, 2010.

3. Systematic Review IS0 9984:1996, Transliteration of Georgian characters into Latin characters.

“This International Standard establishes a system for the transliteration of Georgian characters into Latin characters in accordance with the principles of stringent conversion in order to permit international information exchange, particularly by electronic means.”

The deadline for comments to Cindy is no later than Thursday, Feb. 18, 2010.

ISO standards documents are not openly available, but ALA members can request documents for the purpose of review and comment from Cindy at HSLcindy@buffalo.edu (please also copy me at metadata.maven@gmail.com). Please be sure to state explicitly that you ARE a current ALA member — Cindy will not send you a document without this assurance.

In the absence of other recommendations, ALA will recommend that NISO vote to confirm these standards. If you believe ALA should recommend another option, you must provide comments for Cindy to pass along with ALA’s recommendation.

More announcements to come …

Diane I. Hillmann
LITA Standards Coordinator

Starr has served as a member of the LITA Board of Directors. She has experience in international relations having served on the LITA International Relations Committee and in various roles with the ALA International Relations Round Table. In addition to the IRC, Karen has served LITA on the Program Planning Committee and the Nominating Committee, “Creative change comes with long term investment, commitment, and patience. Every 10 years of the last 30, the library field has passed a milestone in its use of technology including online searching (1970s), CDROMs (1980s), and the Internet (1990s). Now we are involved with the digital world. Everyone is struggling with the sustainability of the structure we have and trying to take the next step into the future. We are not quite sure where that step will take us. The innovators and leaders of tomorrow are the LITA members of today. It is refreshing to work with a dynamic group on the national level who care, who want to define that future and who come together to work on what the big picture should look like. I look forward to the opportunity to work with LITA’s members to collaboratively implement the vision that sustains our country’s 21st century information infrastructure,” said Starr.

Newly elected board members, who will serve for three years, are Aaron W. Dobbs, Systems & Electronic Resources Librarian, Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania; and Maurice York, Head, Information Technology, NCSU Libraries, North Carolina State University.

1. Systematic Review ISO 21127:2006, a ballot for the published standard, ISO 21127:2006, Information and documentation — A reference ontology for the interchange of cultural heritage information. This is the first edition of the standard that is intended to facilitate the exchange of information between cultural heritage institutions by defining a domain ontology for cultural heritage information. (Cindy’s deadline for comments is Tuesday, Nov. 24, 2009).

2. Systematic Review ISO 12083:1994, a ballot for the published standard, ISO 12083:1994, Information and documentation — Electronic manuscript preparation and markup. This is the first edition of the International Standard that presents four document type definitions and additional facilities conforming to ISO 8879, Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML). (Cindy’s deadline for comments is Monday, Nov. 23, 2009).

3. Systematic Review ISO 2789:2006, a ballot for the published standard, ISO 2789:2006, Information and documentation — International library statistics. This is the 4th edition of the International Standard that specifies rules for the library and information services community on the collection and reporting of statistics for the purposes of international reporting. (Cindy’s deadline for comments is Friday, Nov. 20, 2009).

4. ISO/CD 13390, Records management systems — Fundamentals and vocabulary. This is a new standard developed to be the basis of the framework for the ISO 30200 family of standards: Management System for Records. It describes fundamentals of a Management System for Records, which form the subject of the ISO 30200 family, and defines related terms. All other standards in the family use the vocabulary defined in this standard. (Cindy’s deadline for comments is Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2009).

5. ISO/CD 13391, Management system for records – Requirements. This is a new standard that specifies requirements for a Management System for Records where an organizations needs to demonstrate its ability to create and control records from its business activities for as long as they are required. It is part of the ISO 30200 family of standards, which is being developed within the management system standards framework to be compatible and to share elements and methodology with other Management System Standards. (Cindy’s deadline for comments is Monday, Sept. 21, 2009).

Any ALA member who wishes to see a copy of the draft standards for the purpose of offering comments prior to the deadline may contact Cindy directly at HSLcindy@buffalo.edu (I’d appreciate it if you’d copy me at metadata.maven@gmail.com so I can keep track of interest). Please be sure to let Cindy know you are a current ALA member. In the absence of other recommendations, ALA will recommend that NISO vote to confirm the ISO standards noted above.

The remaining requests for comment are for two new proposed NISO work items:

1. Physical Delivery of Library Resources.
The goal of this work item is to develop a statement of best practices related to the delivery of library materials. To achieve this objective, this proposal is to convene a NISO Working Group to explore the problem and deliver a Recommended Practice document describing possible solutions and to implement an education and adoption plan for encouraging implementation of the solution(s). The proposal was approved by the Discovery to Delivery Topic Committee on July 24, 2009, and is now being sent to the NISO voting membership for agreement to begin a new work project and to elicit expressions of interest in participating in the work.
If you are interested in reviewing the proposal, you can access it via the following link:
http://www.niso.org/news/pr/view?item_key=e8326f4b6682b07a4cca85967a6cbb0808bf7723 or from the NISO homepage.

Deadline for your comments/feedback to Cindy is Friday, Aug. 21, 2009.

2. Standardized Markup for Journal Articles
The goal of this work item is to take the currently existing National Library of Medicine (NLM) Journal Archiving and Interchange Tag Suite version 3.0, the three journal article schemas, and the documentation and shepherd it through the NISO standardization process. The intent of this proposal is for the Tag Suite to be a NISO standard and each of the schemas to be a “sub-standard” or appendix to the Tag Suite standard. To achieve this objective, this proposal is to convene a NISO Working Group with the intention of proposing that the Tag Suite, as it currently stands, be accepted as a Draft Standard following a brief period of review within the group.
If you are interested in reviewing the proposal, you can access it via the following link:
http://www.niso.org/standards/ballots/#nlm> or from the NISO Homepage.

Deadline for your comments/feedback to Cindy is Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2009.

Diane I. Hillmann
LITA Standards Coordinator

The EL program kicks off with a daylong session during the ALA Midwinter Meeting. Afterward, it grows and develops in an online learning and networking environment for six months. The program culminates with a poster session presentation to display the results of the project planning work of each group at the ALA Annual Conference.

LITA will sponsor 2 Emerging Leaders this year. LITA will contribute $1000 towards expenses ($500 for each conference). The LITA sponsored EL’s will also be paired with the LITA Vice President and will be appointed to a LITA Committee once they complete the EL program. Those interested in being sponsored by LITA, should check the LITA box on their application.

Sponsorship is not required for participation in the program. Anyone who is selected to participate in the program but not sponsored, will be expected to pay their own expenses.

Apply now for the 2010 class of Emerging Leaders. Deadline for submission of online application and all references is EXTENDED to AUGUST 7, 2009

You can find more information including requirements at the ALA Emerging Leader Program website.

Clifford Lynch tells Cool History. Thinks Net Neutrality is a relatively new phrase, says it happened within last 10 years–but is an old idea. Monopolies, natural or otherwise.

Once upon a time, there was a thing called the Bell System aka “Ma Bell”. It was a natural monopoly that took care of all those wires and knew what was good and appropriate for the network and for innovation. Only Bell standard equipment was attached to the network. There were no answering machines.

Innovations we saw in telephony starting in the 70s were all largely illegal. Court cases against Bell’s monopoly broke the pricey monopoly for long-distance service. Some of this ties into the evolution of Net Neutrality. To what extent was the phone company a neutral decision maker in the carrying of signals?

Now, mid 1990s, when the internet was moving from research institutions to a consumer service of interest, enormous price competition and price variation between providers. You didn’t hear a lot of concern about ‘altered internet’ access. The low barrier to entry for an ISP led to expansion, all you had to have was a bank of modems. If you didn’t like the policies from one ISP, you had a lot of choice in switching. Problem: Modem tech reached its limits. Ouch. To REALLY do what you wanted with a MM rich network, you had to have more power. Either you could do something with the existing phone system, cable, perhaps radio, or cable it yourself drag a wire into your home (expensive). Viability, you come down to 2 options in bband, telephone or cable. Most homes have only one choice though, either get it from your telco or your cable. So now we have a monopoly or duopoly.

So what are they doing? Formerly, all you can use, now rate limiting is common, or not letting you access some sites (like high-bandwidth gaming sites) unless they pay a tariff. Some sites they may not LIKE, and so they may shape your activities by slowing to certain sites. Pay extra, or else.

These are the network neutrality issues that are turning up all over again, deja Bell. Blurry lines exist between filtering and Net Neutrality. Cultural memory orgs and others might get crowded out in this scenario. So a major mediaco might be able to pay the ISP to provide, but something like Public TV might not. In fact, tactics of networks may be to ‘hold up’ the ISP, you can’t have our content unless you pay these licensing fees. Number of mobile providers has diminished, very few choices, and where will these issues be emergent? Mobile!

Carrie Lowe for ALA says, “Network Neutrality is a principle of online non-discrimination”. Users should be able to access any content they need and attach any devices they can. A neutral network is one where no provider could establish exclusive deals and charge the ISP. It IS an intellectual freedom issue. Libraries are creating a role for themselves as PROVIDERS of online info. Who is to say that ISPs would not give libraries, typically unable to pay, lowest priority to distribute content. 2005 ended the idea of NN as a central guiding principle of the Internet. The SC ruled that cable ISPs did not have to maintain neutrality because they were not “telecoms” or communication services. (WooHoo! or BooHoo! depending on your side in issue.)

AT&T agreed in the merger with BS to strong network neutrality with specific language against rate limiting and non-neutral practices).2008 Comcast is blocking p2p on their network.

President Obama, what will happen? Spoke of Net Neutrality and support. FCC is in flux at this time, and the stimulus package is where you will see this play out. Some language was included for these projects. Also, it includes a portion that the FCC will develop a national broadband plan. This FCC will likely take a stand on this issue. She is excited!

Gregory Jackson says, “Why we call it the internet.” We call it that because it is a network of networks, not something that just reaches out and touches us, every one.

Proposes that you must look at local network management to see how it all will play out because local networks must make the same hard choices on a smaller scale. Tells stories. Good stories! U of Chicago. Larry Lessig influenced President Obama re: Net Neutrality.

Story 1

Hypothetical. If a member of your law school decides to run for president, while he is a faculty member, there are lots of things he can do with the college network. Publish, for instance. So library might decide to biblio a collection of this person’s thinking. There might be fans of this person’s thinking, advocacy groups, etc. But the moment he becomes a candidate, it is now no longer possible to offer this, as a non-profit maintaining status. So now you have a tension, what do you do?

Story 2

The library (great library of the world, great collecting library) is making lots available to the world. But a lot of stuff is restricted in one way or another, and these restrictions are increasing, depending upon who you are, student or alumnus. Applying principles of this discrimination is loss of neutrality.

Story 3

Research, instruction, and community service are the principles of the U of C. But our network is a finite resource. Some uses compromise other uses. We must ‘tune’ the network, moving certain traffics at higher priority to allow streaming education. In a way, this is just what Comcast is doing. Who gets to decide? It is our network, and we get to decide. (Oops, that is just what Comcast did.)

Raises issues

What is a network for? You can’t afford to provide everything for everybody.

The way that intellectual property is licensed has not kept pace with the way that people use networks in the modern age.

Ultimately, all of this is about Risk Management. If you clamp it down, your faculty will go elsewhere, taking that Nobel prize with them. How do you balance? This is not about right and wrong, it is about managing risk.

Q&A

Q: Discovery Tools–they may not be neutral. How do they fit in here?

A: New fed procedure rules, the e-discovery thicket. Think about prevalence of largest search engine and the barriers to entry that are set up for new search players.

We want to know what you want to know! Please vote in the topics poll.

The conference wiki is the source to check at:
http://litacamp.pbworks.com/

Experience is showing that attendees interest, contributions and level of participation really makes a “camp”. The LITACamp had a diverse, lively, eager, and really flexible group that contributed to a great experience for all. We were able to utilize a number of un-conference techniques to allow everyone to share and discover want they came to camp for.

Each day began with a kick off speaker. Joan Frye Williams the first day and John Blyberg the second. Both provided important thought provoking ideas on the nature and futures of technology and libraries. There were stimulating ideas and conversations that urged but did not dominate or overshadow attendees ideas and concerns.

The theme that quickly emerged from the campers and continued in many variations for the whole un-conference was “User Experience”. That theme colored almost every other topic as for example how can libraries improve UX, deliver the patron expectations of UX and convince our colleagues of the importance of UX.

For full reports in all manner of methods check out the conference sessions notes at:
http://litacamp.pbworks.com/Session-Notes

Some random thoughts and general notes about LITACamp
The OCLC Conference facilities were excellent, the was staff great, good wifi everywhere, and when power strips were requested they showed up almost instantly. There were loads of rooms of various sizes, all well equipped, to meet all our diverse needs. An especially big thanks to Eric Childress who so generously arranged with LITA the conference facilities.
Holly Tomren and Lisa Thomas did a super job with Twitter and the camp. They made sure there was a universal hashtag and that everyone knew about it. Then they made sure Twitter was used. Finally they made sure the archive was captures. Check the Session Notes page. Holly and Lisa have written up their Twitter experiments and experience, in particular from LITACamp, as part of their ALA Emerging Leader project. It describes techniques and procedures which will be used by LITA.
uStream videos were made of short interviews. Just a laptop and a wireless connection were needed. These are on the Session Notes page too.
Thanks to Sheila Zillner of WiLS for the LITACamp graphic.
Large thanks to the LITA staff for loads of support and encouragement.
Excellent local arranging from Peter Murray and Zoe Marshall, with a great deal of flexibility to include the opening night of the new Star Trek and then due to family and other commitment neither of them were able to attend.
My personal thanks to David Ward, Michelle Frisque, Jennifer Ward and Maurice York for stepping up and really keeping the process moving forward at several different times during the planning and production of the event. Among so many other things David was the wiki master, Jennifer the Facebook group and Michelle wrangled sponsors.
If you’re looking for someone to blame, it’s all my, Mark Beatty, fault (grin).

• Identify the types of programs that are presented and which are most appropriate for online posting
• Identify other organizations such as ACRL, PLA, WebJunction, etc, who are currently providing this service to learn about their experiences
• How should the content be delivered online i.e. live webcast, produced in a studio, screencast, etc.
• Identify, evaluate, and analyze available systems
• Identify which systems are best for delivering each type of program
• Determine who should have access to what types of programs and how. This should include:
  • Identifying the appropriate delivery method
  • Who should have access. Should it be available to all LITA members, available to everyone, etc.?,
  • Should access be different for different user communities?
  • Should their be a registration fee for certain types of programming

• LITA Program Planning Committee
• LITA National Forum Committee 2009
• LITA National Forum Committee 2010
• LITA Web Coordinating Committee
• LITA Education Committee
• LITA BIGWIG

Thanks to the following people for agreeing to serve on this task force:

• Aaron Dobbs, chair
• Melissa Shepard
• Anne Graham
• Cody Hanson
• Michael Witt
• Jenny Emanuel
• Kristine Feery
• David Ward

John Blyberg
Joan Frye Williams
Star Trek (2009)
You set the agenda and control the conference
Register on site
OCLC campus Dublin, OH

Get all the information at the LITACamp Wiki

“The Everywhere Library: Creating, Communicating, Integrating” and our award winning keynote speakers, John Blyberg and Joan Frye Williams are perfect for the wide range of unconference possible presentations and discussions about the new and ever changing landscape we work in.

LITAcamp is THE library technology unconference for lib-techies by lib-techies. We understand the power of technology to expand reach, share information, and build community. LITACamp is a place to discuss and explore the latest in library technology topics and speculate on what might be to come.

Stirring up. Mix. Options and opportunities. New alternatives. Web- scale. All the very best of reasons to go to LITACamp.

It is not too late to register for LITA Camp. Registration forms are still being accepted via fax or email AND registration will be accepted onsite. So just show up.

Follow us at:

LITACamp wiki
LITACamp blog
LITACamp on Twitter Tweet #litacamp09

Karen J. Starr has been elected as 2009 LITA President-Elect; Aaron Dobbs and Maurice York have been elected to serve 3 year terms as LITA Directors-at-large.

Visit the LITA web site for more information.

Our theme, “The Everywhere Library: Creating, Communicating, Integrating” and our award winning keynote speakers, John Blyberg and Joan Frye Williams are perfect for the wide range of unconference possible presentations and discussions about the new and ever changing landscape we work in.

For example OCLC just announced WorldCat Local Quickstart. Marshall Breeding has said of the announcement: “I see this move stirring up the mix of options and opportunities for libraries. Anything that provides new alternatives to libraries is welcome relative to the state of affairs of recent times where libraries feel frustrated by too few options. So we’ve seen open source come in to challenge proprietary systems; we’re seeing initiatives to fundamentally rebuild library automation systems. Now OCLC adds Web-scale, WorldCat-based library automation to the mix. The library automation scene is getting to be more interesting.”

Stirring up. Mix. Options and opportunities. New alternatives. Web- scale. All the very best of reasons to go to LITACamp.

It is not too late to register for LITA Camp. Registration forms are still being accepted via fax or email AND registration will be accepted onsite.

• Posts (like blog posts)
• Online docs (collaborative, wiki-like pages or Google Docs)
• Group calendar
• Surveys
• Polls
• Chat room
• Discussion forums

Members who log in to Connect using their regular ALA Web site username and
password will find that their records are automatically synchronized with ALA’s membership database, so their affiliations with committees, divisions, events, round tables and sections are displayed. In addition to the formal working groups, members can also create their own communities.

If you encounter any problems or have any questions, please contact the LITA office lita@ala.org

Charge:
To explore the possibilities for providing technical support to committees which need to include absent members using Internet connectivity.  To develop an implementation plan for the 2009 Annual Conference.

• Identify levels of support needed and appropriate tool for each level;
• Identify existing tools and develop new tools as needed;
• Identify services that might be needed;
• Determine best ways of providing tools and services.

Task Force:
Thanks to the following people for agreeing to serve on this task force:

• David Lee King, Chair
• Cindi Trainor
• Lauren Pressley
• Derik Badman
• Andreas Orphanides
• Barbara Blummer

Participants determine the topic and format of the sessions on-site, sign up for time slots and pitch session ideas to all. This format encourages collaboration, interaction, discussion and real-time innovation. You get to be both a participant and a presenter, discussing and learning about topics you really care about.

Visit the LITA web site for registration and housing information and the LITACamp wiki and LITACamp blog for the most up-to-date information on the Camp. Registration includes Thursday lunch, continental breakfasts, parking and wifi at the conference center. Registration will be accepted online and onsite; deadline to receive LITA housing rate is April 10.

LITACamp will be ideal for anyone interested in using technology to improve services and access for patrons. Librarians, information technologists, students and trustees from the user-centered information community are all encouraged to attend this un-conference focused on timely discussions of current library issues as determined by the participants themselves.

Charge: 
In support of implementing a centralized system to gather, evaluate and select programs, the LITA Program Process System Task Force will identify systems to determine the most appropriate systems and recommend what they determine to be the best choice(s). 

• Gather system requirements
• Identify common elements for all committees as well as unique elements for each committee
• Identify, evaluate, and analyze available systems

Task Force Members:
Thanks to the following people for agreeing to serve on this task force:

• Ranti Junus, Chair (LITA Program Planning Committee)
• Dale Poulter (LITA Program Planning Committee)
• Zoe Steward-Marshall (LITA National Forum Committee 2009)
• Jennifer Reiswig  (LITA National Forum Committee 2010)
• Lauren Pressley  (LITA Web Coordinating Committee)
• Danielle Plumer  (LITA Education Committee)
• Paul Bracke  (LITA Publications Committee)

Check out the LITA WIKI for updates from the task force.

The text supplied with this ballot explains:

“This is the first ballot on a new standard, ISO/CD 13028, Information and documentation — Implementation guidelines for digitisation of records. This Standard provides guidance for maintaining records in digital format only, where the original paper, or other non-digital source record, has been copied by digitising or other means. It sets out the best practice guidelines for digitisation processes to meet the requirements for trustworthiness and reliability of records.”

Cindy reminds us that this is not a NISO standard, but is being balloted by ISO. ALA is not voting on the standard itself but rather is providing feedback to NISO as to whether to approve or disapprove the standard. NISO will review and consider the feedback that it receives prior to submitting the US vote. ALA members can acquire a copy for review purposes by applying directly to Cindy at HSLcindy@buffalo.edu. Please confirm in your request that you are an ALA member (and if possible copy me as well, at metadata.maven@gmail.com).

Comments are due to Cindy by April 24, 2009.

Diane I. Hillmann
LITA Standards Coordinator

Important stuff first – we are pursuing speakers for educational programming opportunities (i.e Regional Institutes, ALA Programs, Preconferences, and online course/webinar/tutorial/etc. development). The following topics were identified as top priorities (from liaison reports with LITA IGs/Committees and a survey done 18 months ago).
Open Source
Mobile Tech
RDA
Extensible Catalog
SOA (Service Oriented Architecture)
Semantic Web

If you are interest in working with us to develop an educational program in one of these areas, please contact the chairs:
David Ward dh-ward@illinois.edu
Mandy Havert mhavert@nd.edu

You’ll notice some similarities with what is going on at LITA Forum and other LITA activities – one of our goals is to look for ways to take popular/well rated topics/speakers/programs and develop additional educational programming based on them. For example, developing an online course or tutorial based on a popular ALA program or preconference.

Now the more reporty stuff:
LITA Education combined with Regional Institutes in the past year. We spend from Annual 08-Midwinter 09 reviewing our charge and creating organizational documents to track 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), and the 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 from other LITA committees.

–David Ward, on behalf of the LITA Education Committee

Pop Out

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.

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

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

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

The 2009 National Forum Committee seeks proposals for high quality concurrent sessions and poster sessions for the 12th annual LITA National Forum to be held at the Hilton Salt Lake City Center hotel in Salt Lake City, Utah from October 1-4, 2009.

This year we have switched over to online submissions so it’s quick and easy (see the URL below). Also, we’ve extended the deadline for submitting proposals to February 20, 2009!

Theme: Open and Mobile

The Forum Committee is interested in presentations that highlight specific technology implementations; just over-the-horizon technologies that are almost ready for implementation; or information technology research. We are interested in all types of libraries: public, government, school, academic, special, and corporate. Proposals on any aspect of library and information technology are welcome.

Some possible ideas for proposals might include:

* Handheld Technologies: PDAs, Smartphones, Tablet PCS
* E-learning: Effective e-learning and distance learning for the mobile-optimized Web
* Mobile Devices and Accessibility
* Library-specific open source software (OSS) and other OSS “in” Libraries, technology on a budget
* Exposing Library Services via APIs (or APIs in general)
* Anticipating Change: how libraries can be more mobile/flexible/responsive

* Social Computing: social tools, collaborative software, etc.
* User created content: Book reviews, tagging, etc.
* Virtual worlds
* Gaming in Education and Libraries
* Federated and Meta-Searching: design and management, integrated access to resources, search engines
* Digital Libraries/ Institutional Repositories: developments in resource linking, preservation, maintenance, web services
* Authentication and Authorization: Digital Rights Management (DRM), authentication, privacy, services for remote patrons
* Web design: information architecture, activity-centered design, user-centered design, usability testing
* Technology Management: project management, geek management, budgeting, knowledge sharing applications
* Internet Law: privacy, copyright, filtering
* RFID in libraries

Presentations must have a technological focus and pertain to libraries and/or be of interest to librarians. Concurrent sessions are approximately 75 minutes in length and sessions of all varieties are welcomed from traditional single- or multi-speaker formats to panel discussions, case studies, and demonstrations of projects. Forum 2009 will also accept a limited number of poster session proposals.

For projects that will still be in preliminary development in October 2009, we recommend presentation at a lightning talk or other un-conference-like activity for which time will be reserved at Forum. A call for these types of presentations and discussions will be issued after February 2009.

Presenters are required to submit draft presentation slides and/or handouts three weeks in advance for inclusion on the Forum USB drive, and are required to submit final presentation slides to be made available on the Web site after the event.

Your proposals are welcome and much appreciated! To submit a proposal, enter the following information online at http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/lita2009/ :

* Title
* Summary (a one-sentence description of your presentation) (max. 200 characters)
* Abstract and brief outline
* Level indicator (basic, intermediate, or advanced)
* Brief biographical information. Include experience as a presenter and expertise in the topic
* Full contact information
* Is this proposal for a concurrent session?
* Is this proposal for a poster session?
* If this proposal is for a concurrent session, might it be considered for a poster session?
* If this proposal is for a concurrent session, might it be expanded into a half-day or full-day preconference?
* How did you hear about the 2009 Forum call for proposals?

Submit proposals by February 20, 2009 online at:

http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/lita2009/

The 2009 Forum Planning Committee will review proposals starting in February 2009. You will be contacted about the status of your proposal by the end of March.

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.

Thanks!

The deadline for nominations has been extended to December 15, 2008. The award will be given at the 2009 ALA Annual Conference in Chicago. Read the official award press release, including a list of past winners, on LITA’s website.

Dinah Sanders, Innovative Interface

Kelly M. Vickery, University of Kentucky

Instead of just talking about encore, Dinah will discuss how metadata is exposed for patrons to leverage, how is it extended to cover gaps in controlled vocabulary. The majority of Americans use the interwebs everyday. This means they are coming in with savvy web skills and we can leverage metadata to give them tools that are powerful and that users recognize. They are trying to bring these patron skills together with the library strengths of good metadata. However, there are limits, particularly as was mentioned in the opening session “cookery” is not a common term. Encore tries to bring together the formal controlled vocabulary and folksonomies to rectify these problems. Searching can be done across library metadata and user-supplied tags.

Early attempts at this like penntags, sopac, library thing for libraries – exposed key problems:

• Have to use parallel interfaces for tags (they aren’t intermixed with library data)
• Tags are stored and searched separately
• The participation then is really not IN the library catalog

These initiatives forged new ground but still retained separate systems

Community tagging success comes from:

• Eliminate hurdle to participation (like creating a profile)
• Create credibility and local relevance (require authentication with an existing profile)
• Give an immediate return on investment (immediate indexing)

There was apprehension about letting users in, that they would add irrelevant data. Since implemented in June no tags have been deleted. Staff also add tags. Tags and subject headings are used in display and retrieval interfaces together.

Existing ontologies are under-rated, subject headings aren’t perfect, but there is really good information there that can be useful if it is presented properly. For example, relying on recognition (Or’d results) to give them a way to use the subject headings. The results has links to many ways to broaden results.

In addition to using user tags to enhance metadata, it can also point out areas that traditional cataloging wouldn’t get to. Sun Also Rises has a user tag for “lost generation.”

A tour of the user experience for community tagging in Encore:

• A search for drm, shows that the other subjects are “intellectual property” “rights management” etc. The results also show which part of the record matched the term, so you can see if the hit was from the title, subject, or tag.
• Adding a tag is a simple text box. Simple authentication is needed when a tag is added based on an existing profile id. Users can also delete their own tags.
• Administrators can delete tag, but so far it hasn’t been a problem. There are other administrative tools to allow you to blanket approve a tag (“University of Illinois” would probably never be offensive and would not need to be reviewed). You can whitelist just for a particular book too (so “gay” might be relevant to a book about gender studies, so you wouldn’t want to continually review it, although it might be offensive in other records). You can block an individual from tagging as well.

Encore was built in rapid iterative development with many partners. The customer base (a large part of it) has been working with encore on the development to ensure that it is useful. Encore can plan their development cycle around library planning cycles.

Kelly from UK speaks about integrating encore with Voyager. UK had been considering adopting a discovery layer, but couldn’t find the right product. AquaBrowser wasn’t right, Endeca required too much work. They attempted to adopt Primo but it didn’t work out. Went with encore. Since Encore had been developed with Millenium, adapting it to Voyager required some work. Discussions began January 07, a test interface was ready by May. By September, they were ready to begin nightly updating encore with changes that had been made to voyager and it was offered as an alternative search interface. By December it was integrated with the regular OPAC, but is the default. There were some particular issues with the relevance of serials in results list (they tended to be really low). This was worked out and works well now. Through 2008 development on encore 2.0 has continued and was officially upgraded last month. A few issues are still being worked out with 2.0 though.

The integration they chose (to have both simultaneously, but default to encore) works well for them. Navigation between the two is easy (tabular). Give the power users the option to continue to use voyager. Data from voyager to encore:

• Marc/serial holdings
• Item info
• Item circ.
• Location/collection
• Patron records

The nightly update is no good for circ though, so that info is not in encore. There are solutions to this, but they were too difficult to implement. They are still working on integrating LDAP into encore for authentication. Encore sends back to the ILS:

• Request an item
• Find out more
• Advanced search
• Circ. stats

1 out of 3 use Encore. It has not been promoted very much yet, but this number is encouraging to UK. Undergrads tend to use encore, but faculty tend to switch back to voyager. This seems pretty believable. They have gotten some negative comments, but only a few. The return visitor rate is about 45%. Voyager has a return rate of about 60%.

Tags in the academic environment might be really useful for journals. The subject headings for journals tend to be very general. UK hopes that users will tag journals to make them more useful. Another area that might be very useful is tagging for specific courses. This would also allow the professor to update these continually. The course reserve list could be indicated through tags. Students of course could tag things for courses as well. A third is animal names. Subjects tend to use scientific names – equine, bovine, etc. tags can add horse and cow.

Tagging might start to eliminate the problem where users need to create many separate bibliographies for their discipline (A/V, women’s studies etc.) – and some of these are even made into a shadow database. If the catalog gives groups the ability to dynamically create and resort their own lists, they could do it through the catalog. This would be even better because it could be updates as the catalog is updated.

Dinah closes the session with examples of public library tagging. Fan or community groups tag using their own terms, use informal vocabulary and disambiguation, emerging vocabularies – all of these are represented. Emerging vocabularies is also a good point for academic libraries, disciplines are often evolving before they are made into subject headings. Some of the users are adding very library-centric things like isbns and “young adult fiction.” Tags enable “iterative “berry picking”” approaches since they don’t have to start over and do sophisticated pre-coordinated searches.

U. Glasgow found that only 4% of users did a subject search in the old catalog – the terminology was confusing. Now however, 66% of users use the tag cloud.

To close Dinah notes that not only the materials, but also your community’s conversations are collected. And in an age of increasing digitization, it is the local voice which distinguishes one library from another.

Questions discussed other search suggestion features of Encore (“Did you mean”), catalogers use of the tags (when appropriate), the database for tags (keyed to record id. The tag database stays in Encore, does not go back to Encore. If a new ILS is switched to, encore could map the old bib number to the new); Encore is linked back to from Encore when other ILS functions (like request, etc) are needed. Tags are associated with patrons forever, even if the patron record goes away, however no one has expressed any privacy concerns because it’s completely opt-in. Tags for courses could be problem in this way – if course curriculum changes, things would need to be untagged. Encore provides administrative tools for that, but it happens at the administrative level. At this time, users cannot batch add tags.

More details will be posted later

The Kilgour Research Award recognizes research relevant to the development of information technologies, in particular research which shows promise of having a positive and substantive impact on any aspect of the publication, storage, retrieval and dissemination of information or how information and data are manipulated and managed. The Kilgour award consists of $2,000 cash, an award citation and an expense paid trip to the ALA Annual Conference (airfare and two nights lodging).

Nominations will be accepted from any member of the American Library Association. Successful nominating letters will address how the research is relevant to libraries; is creative in its design or methodology; builds on existing research or enhances potential for future exploration; and/or solves an important current problem in the delivery of information resources. A curriculum vita and a copy of several significant publications by the nominee must be included. Preference will be given to completed research over work in progress. More information and a list of previous winners can be found at www.lita.org.

Currently-serving officers and elected officials of LITA, members of the Kilgour Award Committee and OCLC employees and their immediate family members are ineligible.

Send nominations by December 31, 2008, to the Award jury chair:
Michael Gorman, 525 W. Superior Street, Apt. 225, Chicago IL, 60654, e-mail

The 2009 Kilgour award will be presented at the LITA President’s Program during the 2009 ALA Annual Conference in Chicago, Ill.

The award, given to either an individual or an institution, may recognize a single seminal work or a body of work, created during or continuing into the five years immediately preceding the award year. The body of work need not be limited to published texts, but can include course plans or actual courses and/or non-print publications such as visual media, for example. More information and a list of previous winners can be found on the LITA website.

Currently serving officers and elected officials of LITA, members of the LITA/Library Hi Tech Award Committee and employees and their immediate family of Emerald Publishing Group are ineligible.

Nominations must include the name(s) of the recipient(s), basis for nomination, and references to the body of work and should be sent to Cindi Trainor. Electronic submissions are preferred, but print submissions may be sent to:

Cindi Trainor
103 Crabbe Library
521 Lancaster Avenue
Richmond, KY 40475

The award will be presented at the LITA President’s Program during the 2009 Annual Conference of the American Library Association in Chicago, Illinois.

Also ideas for future programs and publication were explored with members.

Saturday, 8 am-noon, Paradise Pier Hotel in Anaheim, CA (Disneyland)

Presenters:
Kim Duckett, Librarian for Digital Technologies and Learning, North Carolina State University Libraries, Chad Haefele, Reference Librarian, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Samantha Hines, Assistant Professor, Distance Education Coordinator and Social Sciences Librarian, University of Montana, Howard Carter, Associate Professor and Manager, Instructional Support Services, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, and Harvey R. Gover, 2008 ACRL/Haworth Press National Distance Learning Librarian, Acting Chair and Consultant to the Distance Learning Section Guidelines Committee, and Assistant Campus Librarian, Max E. Benitz Memorial Library, Washington State University Tri-Cities.

Kim Duckett believes librarians should adopt a philosophy of blended librarianship. Duckett says a focus on distance learners will lead to better library experiences for all because traditional learners are becoming more like distance learners as more and more students receive their education online.

Duckett says as libraries offer more digital resources for both synchronous and asynchronous learning, offering everything from virtual reference to e-reserves,  a seamless integration of library resources into Web-based course-management systems should be a top priority for librarians everywhere. She asks librarians to increase their presence online and go where their users are. She asks librarians to think about their most difficult patrons, those who do not come into the library, surmising that virtual users, having had a satisfactory online library experience, will actually visit the library.

Chad Haefele’s presented his experiences while the interim head of distance learning services at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.  Before his arrival the distance learning department was isolated, offered limited service, was staffed by non-MLS professionals, lacked formalized procedures, and relied on a paper based system.

Haefele moved the distance learning services to the library and physically relocated it to the circulation desk. This move expanded the distance learning hours of service (7 am to midnight instead of 9 am- 5 pm). He also employed local students  who could relate student and curriculum needs to library resources. Daily tasks were formalized and computerized, allowing for formal procedures to take hold. The end result was a highy efficient service with better communication between departments, faculty, students, and staff.
 
The growing demand for online education, what Haefele calls an “assembly line approach to education,” will result in a greater need for librarian specialists and ultimately, all librarians will become distance learning librarians. Above all, he believes that the distance learning department should not be walled off because it will suffer from stagnation, lack accountability and lack overall effectiveness.

His advice to distance leaning librarians is to assume you will not be there tomorrow and that you are the only point of contact. He says education is becoming a commodity and recommends partnering with others, knowing copyright law, automating the mundane, focusing on students, opening up data sources, and using full APIs otherwise, “students will leave you in the dust…. Isolation doesn’t work.”

Samantha Schmel Hines opened her talk with a quote from Anne Lipow:

Rather than thinking of our users as remote we should recognize that we are remote from our users.

Hines asked us to move from thinking of the library as place to the library as service.  She traced the growth and pervasiveness of the Internet, the rise of digital education, and the challenges we face from the digital divide.

Howard Carter discussed the long history of correspondence education and distance education. He believes the greatest challenge to distance education came with the advent of the Internet and argues that best practices for Internet accessibility results in better experiences for everyone since most library users are online and distance is a disability which needs to be accommodated. He believes that the ACRL Standards for Distance Learning needs to address libraries in general since “technology is a subscription that needs to be renewed.”

Carter laments the lack of library funding overall (he noted that the 2010 book budget at Southern Illinois University Carbondale given the current level of funding will equate to zero) and highlighted the increase in adjunct virtual faculty members and the rise in for-profit universities. New degree models, he believes, should result in more library funding and more opportunities for librarians.
Harvey R. Gover’s role was “bringing some order our of the chaos.” He summarized the findings of earlier presenters and asked librarians to refer to the Blueprint for Success: The National Agricultural Library 2008-2012 and the soon to be updated ACRL Guidelines for Distance Learning Library Services.

(I apologize in advance for the level of detail here. I wasn’t able to get online and post right away and so I’m working from my handwritten notes – which are difficult to read at times and a bit cryptic at others. So, while I think a few statements are worth providing, I can’t recall the exact context of them. Rather than trying to guess, I’m simply providing them as-is.)

Joseph Janes, from the University of Washington and columnist for American Libraries, kicked off this session with a presentation about the evolution of libraries and how we can define what they are, followed by a panel discussion by the It’s All Good blogging team.

Joseph Janes presentation:

The evolution of libraries isn’t necessarily tied to technology. Instead, it relates to societal and demographic changes, publishing changes, and political, legal, and cognitive issues – all of which create a dynamic environment that libraries react to. Before we can answer the question “What is a library?” we have to answer the question “What does it mean to be in the library?”

The idea of being in the library, or “crossing the threshold,” has always been bigger than the main library building itself to include library branches, bookmobiles, etc. When thinking of the library’s “digital threshold” we begin to include chatting with a librarian, accessing databases, downloading audiobooks, and more.

“Anywhere, anytime, anyway in which people interact with information organized, provided, supported by their own community via their library staff.”

A library is defined by five things:
The place
The stuff
The support
The interaction
The values

If you take away one of these things, it becomes something other than a library.

The library needs to be somewhere and everywhere – with both physical and virtual spaces. Library users have multiple presences and identities that are tied to environments with information needs. Because users tend to use the path of least resistance, we need to be where they are.

We have to be better online. Users need a lot of motivation to come to us online (we have lots of competitors) and the online environment makes it very easy for them to leave.

It’s All Good bloggers response:

Library collections are becoming ubiquitous.

People are creating their own content online. The recent issue of Wired magazine has an article on the volume of data that’s being created by people with video recorders, etc.

Rather than simply using the tools that people are using, ask them why they’re using them and then design services around those needs.

Librarians need to be enthusiastic and passionate to attract and keep users. (If I had to choose one single common theme to come out of all of the ALA sessions I attended, it would have to be that of building relationships.)

Branding should be added to Joe’s list of 5 things that define a library. According to the results of an IMLS project, students don’t always realize that the library is responsible for providing electronic materials (they often think it’s another department or the overall academic institution). Also, youth are taught to avoid strangers online and are hesitant to use anonymous online services. Libraries have to be transparent in their virtual reference services.

Think “Simple, but brilliant.”

Sarah’s bit was next, followed by Clifford Lynch who first wanted to react to the comments about open source that previous panelists had made. He asked that we be smart about it and not overreact in any one direction – it’s not necessarily a panacea for us! He went on to discuss his trends, after that. He pointed out that economic pressures will be forcing a move toward virtual organizations and collaboration – travel is getting too expensive! He touched on Net Neutrality as well, broadband issues that are being discussed today will be affected by this debate. He mentioned cloud computing and the privacy issues involved with having our data in the “cloud” as well as the trend toward libraries and cultural heritage organizations putting their collections in places other than inside their buildings (Flickr, etc.). He finished by talking about information overload.

Karen responded to comments at that point by saying that, in the case of disparate levels of innovation in libraries (in response to Sarah’s trend talk), this also exists within large libraries. Different departments or units may be far more innovative than others.

Roy Tennant came next and he contends that this is an age of experimentation and of surprises. He also said that we need to get really good at extracting data from our own systems. He finished with the observation that we all need to take responsibility for our own professional development and learning. There was a question at that point about how library schools can help with this – his answer was that they really can’t. Either you are embrace change and innovation or you don’t. Concepts and theory can be taught to *help* with innovation and learning, but that’s about it.

Merideth Farkas was next. She thinks that social software should have a role in collecting local knowledge – and that libraries should be collecting this information as well! She also discussed the notion of the library as a creative technology lab for patrons. She finished up with the idea of libraries archiving blogs as historical data.

John Blyberg followed Merideth and he started his list with green tech in libraries. He continued with a discussion of the semantic web. He also touched on converged media hubs for libraries to allow users to access their gadgets at the library. He finished with a discussion of the library as a content creator – not just a content archive.

Karen did her trends next, followed by Eric Lease Morgan. He feels it is going to be very important to provide access to the data that supports articles in journals – not just the articles. He also discussed mobile devices, web APIs and the fact that library sites need a blog.

Karen Coyle was the last panelist to speak, and she talked about catalog and journal searches should be able to be performed from a mobile phone interface. She also thinks that the future of bibliographic control will be a big mash-up, with no input from libraries (like Amazon now gives more bib info than most libraries do). She also thinks that libraries need to foster user-to-user interaction.

There was some more discussion about the kind of people/skills needed to bring us forward – I think it was a question from either the audience or the Meebo room. Eric answered that systematic as well as creative thinking will be required. Merideth said that being willing to question everything, being intolerant of things that don’t work and being patient enough to make stuff work was going to be ideal. Karen Schneider said that we’ll need people who are impatient with mediocrity.

Whew! That was an information-packed session, with lots going on, and I know I didn’t capture half of it!!

It started off with Diane giving a very nuts-and-bolts presentation about basic PC, printer and network troubleshooting. She went through the basic troubleshooting steps for your PC (reboot, check cables, discover “where it hurts” on the machine…) and then did the same for printers and network issues. She gave concrete steps to use when troubleshooting, but also gave pointers for talking to the next level of tech support and what they will need from the end users. It was all incredibly useful stuff!

Brenda started off with an introduction to the MaintainIT project. For those who are unaware of it, this project takes challenges and successes from librarians across the country and makes them into stories and recipes that other libraries can use. They issue free Cookbooks that provide solid technical advice, ideas and help so that other libraries don’t have to reinvent the wheel to get around their challenges. They have also begun creating webinars, in conjunction with Webjunction, that deal with specific challenges in a short, 30 minute, format, as well as a book club that gives librarians a chance to discuss the individual chapters of the cookbooks. After she introduced these, she gave us a chance to break into small groups and discuss our individual challenges and successes with each other. When we all got back from our individual discussions, several people in the audience shared their discussions; finding space – and outlets – for laptops in an older building, dealing with stolen computer parts – and printers, and dealing with the “goldfish effect” – no matter how many computers we make available, the demand keeps increasing at a much faster pace! She finished by saying that the next cookbook will start to become available in July and that there will be a book discussion on chapter 5 of the “Recipes for a 5-star library” cookbook later in July as well.

Jennifer concluded the session with an overview of the Webjunction resources. She discussed the collaboration efforts of Webjunction and some of it’s more notable features! She explained what was available in Webjunction’s Tech Atlas – a set of resources that assist in technology planning, surveying users, budgeting for tech and much more! She also introduced the Rural Library Sustainability Project and some of the results from recent library tech brainstorming sessions. There were some excellent ideas there – including the suggestion to partner with local tech suppliers (Best Buy/Circuit City/Radio Shack) and have them bring in techie gadgets to demo. This could be good advertisement for the company and free tech training for your staff & patrons!

The session was a really nice introduction to both solid skills needed by library techs and to the amazing amounts of resources out there for folks who might need some tech help!

Notification when requested items are added to the catalog
Public comments and recommendations of books read
Blogs, podcasts, reference via instant messaging
Text message alerts
Saved lists of titles checked out or of interest
RSS feeds
Ability to communicate online with other library patrons

She then shared some compelling data from the December 2007 Pew Internet & American Life Project Survey about the ubiquity of mobile communications technologies. The bottom line: MCL patrons want a 2.0 library experience.

Some library patrons indicated that it is important to them that their library records remain private, and some did not. Cindy pointed out that it is librarians’ responsibility to protect patrons’ privacy on their behalf, and then proceeded to illuminate some challenges presented by web 2.0. Libraries are now creating records–such as blog posts and comments, and chat transcripts–that never existed before. We are keeping records like never before (think reading lists and MyLibrary tools), we’re sending records into realms beyond our control (in the forms of text messages, rss feeds, and more), and we’re inviting our users to personalize and participate in the evolution of our products and services.

Cindy aptly drew a comparison between opening the doors of the physical library and to the virtual library. Libraries have policies to protect patrons in the physical library; the same should be true for the virtual environment. The Fair Information Practices section of ALA’s Intellectual Freedom Manual can help libraries update their privacy policies. Privacy warnings can be provided, and patrons should be given the choice to opt into (not out of) of services that involve any risk.

Cindy also talked about what can happen when a library creates a public forum, and pointed out that there are two types–open forums (a.k.a. the “free-for-all”), and limited or designated public forums. Unlike the open forum, the limited or designated public forum has rules, boundaries, and guidelines. Important when using social software to create a limited forum:

Make explicit what you are trying to accomplish
Explain the type of forum and its purpose
Make clear the rules and the penalties for violation
Identify when, how, and by whom posts will be vetted
Create a notice and appeal process

Digital library consultant Karen Coyle then talked about technical and legal issues that librarians launching interactive web-based services need to consider. She pointed out that when we say “privacy,” we often mean “confidentiality,” and that there are three exceptions to the confidentiality of patron records:

Librarians have access to patron records
Records of money owed to the library are not protected
Records are not protected in the case of a court order

Karen pointed out that as social networking and libraries evolve together, the context of the networking is likely to be broader than the user’s “home” library. The larger the network, the greater its value. But the greater the risk as well. Facebook is routinely asked by law enforcement for the personal data of its users, and as a private company, is responsible only for complying with its own privacy policy. Libraries, on the other hand, must comply not only with their own privacy policies, but also with state laws that require libraries to protect certain data.

So how can we protect information over which we have limited control?

We can make clear to our users which virtual spaces are protected and which are not. We can have conversations with our IT departments about allowing users to remain anonymous in certain cases, and again, we can require users to opt into services where records may not be totally protected. We can undergo a security audit, make sure we have the knowledge and capability to secure our systems, and we can discuss with our vendors and help shape the policies and practices they employ when it comes to the security of our patrons’ library use data.

Darrell Gunter began by discussing Collexis research projects and applications for libraries. Fascinating work is being undertaken on computationally derived ontology, what Collexis refers to as Fingerprinting. [Bibliographic ontology (like FRBR or FRAD not getting any play in the semantic portion of the presentation). ] Screenshots of tools (presentation slides to be posted to the LITA wiki) included the Knowledge Dashboard, which is being used for Hypothesis Generation by scientists. Biomedexperts.com discussed as a Collexis partner with tools for researchers including expert visualization, social network graphs of who is publishing with whom. Asklepios Group discussed as a user of collexis tools which utilizes mobile technology for patient-side consultation and comparison of relevant treatments.

I would characterize Collexis methodology as relying on computationally derived indexing for data visualization (btw-the intellectual foundations of LIS exist (partly) in the aforementioned FRBR ontology). To some extent one has to question the use of the term semantics here, in that behind their derived “meaning” are sets of algorithms, which don’t actually answer the question “what exists” but rather “what exists in the databases we compute from” – in my opinion. I think of Karl Jaspers and his idea on the limitations of certain kinds of empiricism.

Neeru Khosla of CK12 introduced the Flexbook, a collaboratively authored and produced textbook. Neeru modeled the assembler interface which allows the user to select chapters for their desired book. Flexbook is pitched as a low cost way to create textbooks. CK12 is looking for librarians to provide indices, meta information, keywords to this interface to help organize the chapter content. I would characterize this work as sort of a Textbook2.0 in that the user can easily piece together the book they want and suit it to their exact student needs and not pay an exceedingly high cost. Regarding quality: Neeru informs us that chapters can come from wikis such as Wikipedia and from donated textbook content. If you are interested in learning more contact neeru@ck12.org

If you are interested in semantic type stuff see the w3c.org page.

This is located in Hilton Hotel in the Carmel room.

Just go up 2 escalators from the lobby and take a left down a narrow hallway. We are about half-way down.

Hope to see you there!

View Larger Map

Please visit this link to respond to the survey. You will be asked to provide your ALA Membership ID. The survey will take 10 minutes and offers both structured and open responses. Member ID numbers will be collected in order to correlate responses in the aggregate to membership participation in divisions, round tables, and committees, as well as by geographic regions and type of library or related field. Asking for your member ID saves approximately 12 questions and allows you to immediately begin the survey. No personal identifiers will be retained and responses will be reported solely in the aggregate.

Please direct any comments or questions about the survey to John Chrastka, ALA Director for Membership Development and Staff liaison to the TFOEMP at jchrastka@ala.org where they will be directed to the Task Force.

x-posted from the Member Blog

Directors-at-Large (Serving 3-year terms): Mona Couts; Colleen Cuddy; Lorre Smith

New ALA Councilors who are LITA Members: Aaron Dobbs; Ling Hwey Jeng; Wei Jeng-Chu; Carla J. Stoffle; Julie Su

More information about the winners is available at the LITA Web site.

Result: a shiny, up-to-date LITABlog!

Thanks for everyone’s patience. There will still likely be small changes as we implement a few things (tags, mainly) but overall LITABlog is back to business.

griffey AT gmail.com

I will endeavor to make sure that the transition is a smooth one.

Thanks everyone!

EDIT: Since KGS asked: We are going to be updating WordPress to the most current version, currently 2.3.3. Doing so means that we evaluate and examine the plugins being used, and see if they either are still needed with the upgrade (some aren’t, primarily some of the plugins we’re now using for tagging) and some are (most worrisome to me, Podpress, which hasn’t always been the most stable of plugins although the functionality is unsurpassed). After I’m done with the evaluation, I’ll do a post outlining the whole process, if anyone is interested.

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.

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!