Conference programs and preconferences for Annual 2015! The LITA Program Planning Committee (PPC) is now accepting innovative and creative proposals for the 2015 Annual American Library Association Conference. We’re looking for full day pre-conference ideas as well as 60- and 90-minute conference presentations. The focus should be on technology in libraries, whether that’s use of, new ideas for, trends in, or interesting/innovative projects being explored – it’s all for you to propose. In 2014, we received over 60 proposals, resulting in 20 great LITA programs at the 2014 Annual Conference, all of which came from contributions like yours. We look forward to hearing the great ideas you will share with us this year. When/Where is the Conference? The 2015 Annual ALA Conference will be held in San Francisco, California, from June 25th through 30th. What kind of topics are we looking for? We’re looking for programs of interest to all…
Category: General information
Call for Proposals: Midwinter 2015 Workshops (Chicago, IL January 2015)
The LITA Education Committee is now accepting innovative and creative proposals for workshops to be presented at the ALA Midwinter Meeting in Chicago in January. We’re looking for interactive full day workshops on technology in libraries–use of, new ideas for, and trends. *When/Where is the Conference?* 2015 ALA Midwinter Conference; January 30-February 3, 2015, Chicago, IL Workshops will be presented on Friday, January 30. *What kind of topics are we looking for? * We’re looking for workshops that offer a deeper dive into subjects and provide hands on experience with technology currently being used and emerging in libraries. Workshops and Preconferences offered recently included: Strategic Social Media: Creating Library Community Online Level Up Web: Modern Web Development and Management Practices for Libraries Managing Data: Tools for Plans and Data Scrubbing Practical Linked Data with Open Source Web Therapy Building Web Applications with HTML5, CSS3, and Javascript: An Introduction to HTML5…
LITA Board of Directors – Saturday 6/28/14
This will be an audio only stream of the LITA Board of Directors meeting one at ALA Annual 2014 in Las Vegas, NV. It will go live around 1:30pm Pacific Time, and there will be an announcement of it going live on the LITA Twitter stream.
Vegas: not just gambling and shows
As many of you may know, I spend a decent amount of time in Vegas every year as a result of covering CES every January. I really enjoy it, but know that it’s not really for some people…and with tens of thousands of librarians descending on Vegas for ALA Annual, it’s likely that a lot of us won’t enjoy the ever-present gambling or the overly-expensive shows that make Vegas so popular. So I thought I’d point out a few things that I really like about Vegas that don’t revolve around the typical Vegas activities. Thrill Seekers If you’re a fan of thrill rides, amusement park style, Vegas has a couple of things for you. The Fremont Street Zipline: A zipline that takes you down the length of the original Vegas Strip, Fremont Street. You can fly above the crowd, surrounded by the neon and LEDs of Freemont Street. Thrill Rides…
Technology Speed-Dating at ALA Annual in Las Vegas
The LITA/ALCTS Library Code Year Interest Group is hosting a technology speed-dating event during their session at ALA Annual 2014 in Las Vegas on Saturday June 28th from 1:00 to 2:30 p.m.! LCY wants you to be a part of the technology speed-dating. What is technology speed-dating anyway? Part informational, part discussion, completely useful. Several experts will be stationed around the meeting room and talk about a specific topic, software, piece of code, programming language, etc., to attendees for a set amount of time and then they will rotate to a different expert until the time ends. While the LCY IG session is 90 minutes total, the technology speed-dating will be 60 minutes and is meant to be a more casual, conversational, learning experience. What are you knowledgeable in? Using Python or Ruby, Drupal or WordPress? Have you written a useful script? Can you explain a code snippet to…
LITA Bylaws Review Underway
Based on conversations at Board meetings, as well as an attempt to fix a number of issues that have arisen over the last 2-3 years (specifically issues around officers and timing of elections) the Bylaws committee has began work on analyzing the LITA Bylaws. For those of you that are new to LITA, or just haven’t been enthralled by parliamentary process like some of us, the Bylaws are the rules by which the Division operates. The LITA Manual lays out responsibilities and operational issues, but the Bylaws are the rules by which the organization operates. Want to know how to start an IG? That’s in the bylaws. After discussions within the Bylaws Committee, and examining how such a review of those specific sections relating to elections and officers would need to occur, our conclusion was that a large part of the current issues have been caused by just this sort…
A Report on LibHack
What happened at LibHack? Wait, what was LibHack? LibHack was a library hackathon held during ALA Midwinter on Friday, January 24 at the University of Pennsylvania’s Kislak Center for Special Collections. Organized by the LITA/ALCTS Code Year Interest Group and sponsored by OCLC and the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA), the event featured two separate tracks — one specifically catered to beginners that worked on the OCLC WorldCat Search API, and another track open to beginners and advanced hackers that worked on the DPLA API. OCLC Track Of the 55 attendees, there was a 50-50 split between the two tracks. The OCLC track was led by Steve Meyer, Technical Platform Project Manager at OCLC, and several other OCLC staff members were on hand to lend support. Since the track was designed to meet the needs of beginner programmers, Steve led a workshop that used the WorldCat Search API to…
LITA Board Midwinter 2014 Meeting #3
How has LITA made your life awesome? Tell us at #becauseLITA
Are you a member of LITA? Has LITA helped you in any way? Perhaps you’ve taken an online workshop, attended a preconference, read a useful article in LITA’s journal, participated in a conference, expanded your professional network, or even just had fun socializing and interacting with colleagues interested in libraries and technology. If LITA has impacted your job or your career, we want to hear about it! How has LITA made your life awesome? Tweet, blog, use instagram, use facebook, make a video, record a sound byte, or use your favorite flavor of social media to share LITA’s impact on you and be sure to include the hashtag #becauseLITA. We are aggregating everything with that hashtag on our Tagboard. At this upcoming Midwinter Conference, an amazing team of LITA folk have been helping me, Rachel Vacek, your LITA Vice-President, plan the LITA Town Meeting on Monday, January 27th from 8:30-10:00…
LITA/Library Hi Tech award nominations sought
Nominations are being accepted for the 2014 LITA/Library Hi Tech Award, which is given each year to an individual or institution for outstanding achievement in educating the profession about cutting edge technology through communication in continuing education within the field of library and information technology. Sponsored by the LITA and Library Hi Tech, the award includes a citation of merit and a $1,000 stipend provided by Emerald Group Publishing Limited, publishers of Library Hi Tech. The deadline for nominations is December 2, 2013. 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. More information and a list of previous…