2011

Video: The World (and Jason Griffey) Interview Verner Vinge

The video for Saturday’s interview with noted science fiction author Verner Vinge is now available on the LITA Ustream Channel. The complete interview runs for about two hours and is available in part 1 and part 2. 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.

2011

LITA 201 Midwinter 2011

Are you a new LITA member, or one who hasn’t quite found your place in the organization yet? Not quite sure what LITA is all about? LITA 201 is a session intended to introduce people to the organization and help them find a meaningful way to get involved and get connected. Don Lemke, chair of the Membership Development committee, headed this session and introduced the newbies to the organization, and to invited Committee chairs and Interest Group leaders. 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….

2011

The World (and Jason Griffey) Interviews Vernor Vinge

Jason Griffey kicked off the session by introducing Dr. Vernor Vinge and talking about his many accolades as a science fiction writer and futurist. Dr. Vinge then talked about how humans are the best tool-creating animal and the only animal that has figured out how to outsource their cognition — how to spread their cognitive abilities into the outside world.  As an example, he talked about how  writing and speaking are an outsourcing of our thinking and money represents an outsourcing of our perceived value for things. As humans continue to outsource cognition more effectively by harnessing powerful machines and complex networks, we move closer to a point of technological singularity.  At this point, where a superhuman intelligence can be achieved by machines or some combination of humans and machines, it will become too difficult for humans to fully grasp the present or to predict the future.  As an example, he talked about how someone might be able to explain the…

2011

The World (and Jason Griffey) interviews Vernor Vinge

On Saturday, January 8 at 1:30pm in Room 29 A-D of the San Diego Convention Center, I have the opportunity to interview an incredible author and thinker, Dr. Vernor Vinge. Dr. Vinge is most well known for being a multiple Hugo Award winning author, but he is also a Professor and technologist, famous for being a proponent of the idea of The Singularity. If you have time to pick up one of his works before ALA MidWinter 2011, I’d recommend Rainbows End…it has some of the most interesting discussions of libraries, digitization, augmented reality, and information immersion of any book in the last 50 years. He even name-checks the ALA in it. 🙂 I am taking questions both now and live during the interview. We will be streaming the Interview here on LITABlog, as well as at the LITA UStream channel, taking questions via Facebook and Twitter, but if you…

2011

LITA Top Tech Trends at Midwinter in San Diego

WHEN: Sunday, January 9, 2011, 8 – 9:30am pacific time WHERE: San Diego Convention Center SDCC-Room 26 A/B Here at litablog.org for live streaming and live blogging Twitter #alamwttt The illustrious panelists will be: Lorcan Dempsey, Vice President and Chief Strategist, OCLC Rachel Frick, Program Director, Digital Library Federation Erik Mitchell, Assistant Director for Technology Services, Wake Forest University Monique Sendze, Associate Director of Information Technology, Douglas County Libraries, Colorado Jeffrey Trzeciak, University Librarian, McMaster University Join us for a fun and casual discussion, moderated by Jason Vaughan, LITA Top Tech Trends Committee chair.

2011

Call for Bloggers! Midwinter 2011 Schedule

Do you plan to attend ALA Midwinter in San Diego? Take this opportunity to become a LITA Blogger. The LITA Blog (http://litablog.org) will again be on hand to report what is happening and share the terrific Midwinter experience with those who cannot attend this year. If you like to write and are looking for new ways to get involved (or have blogged in the past and would like to blog again), please email me at thebrewinlibrarian@gmail.com and let me know what sessions you would like to cover. The blog schedule for Midwinter is below and will be updated as we receive volunteers. Names of bloggers appear in bold next to session. If there is no name after a session title, please feel free to sign up for it! We will be taking volunteers up to and during the conference. Thank you very much in advance! Matt Hamilton, LITA Web Coordinating Committee…

2011

Join LITA Tech Set authors for a conversation at ALA Midwinter

The LITA Publications Committee will be hosting a conversation and open discussion with three of the LITA Tech Set authors: Marshall Breeding, author of Next Gen Library Catalogs and recognized expert on all things ILS and library technology. Marshall was the 2010 recipient of the prestigious LITA/Library Hi Tech Award for Outstanding Communication in Library and Information Technology. Kelly Czarnecki, author of Gaming in Libraries. Kelly is a technology education librarian at ImaginOn, an innovative collaboration between Charlotte Mecklenburg Library and the Children’s Theater of Charlotte. Lauren Pressley, author of Wikis for Libraries and So You Want To Be a Librarian? Lauren also writes one of the leading library blogs, http://laurenpressley.com/library/. Please join Saturday, January 8, 2011, 1:30-2:30 pm SDCC 31B for a lively exchange with these top technology authors.