Category: News & Noteworthy

News & Noteworthy

LITA Excellence in Children’s and Young Adult Science Fiction Notable Lists

| Chrishelle Thomas
SF Notables logo

The LITA Committee Recognizing Excellence in Children’s and Young Adult Science Fiction presents the 2019 Excellence in Children’s and Young Adult Science Fiction Notable Lists. The lists are composed of notable children’s and young adult science fiction published in 2018, organized in three age-appropriate categories. The annotated lists are posted on the Science Fiction Notables website. The Golden Duck Notable Picture Books List is selected from books intended for pre-school children and very early readers, ages up to 6 years old. Recognition is given to the author and the illustrator. Bitty Bot’s Big Beach Getaway by Tim McCanna. Illustrated by Tad Carpenter. Paula Wise-man/Simon & Schuster. Breaking News: Alien Alert by David Biedrzycki. Charlesbridge. Doll-E 1.0 by Shanda McCloskey. Little, Brown YR. If You Had a Jetpack by Lisl H. Detlefsen. Illustrated by Linzie Hunter. Knopf. Little Robot Alone by Patricia MacLachlan and Emily MacLachlan Charest. Illustrated by Matt Phelan….

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News & Noteworthy

Update on New Division Discussions

| Bohyun Kim
ALCTS, LITA, and LLAMA logos

We sincerely thank all who have participated & contributed to the New Division discussions so far. Please bear with us at this time of great flux and change. We are trying to ensure the best future for all three divisions. And LITA folks, please come discuss the LITA future at the LITA Town Hall meeting Monday if you are at #alamw19.” This week, the Steering Committee, composed of the Presidents, President-Elects, and Executive Directors of the three divisions, concluded that we are not ready to ask our Boards to vote on a new division proposal at this week’s Midwinter Meeting. We worked hard to create a comprehensive project plan that would speak to members of each division; however, our timeline to hold the member vote this spring turned out to be too ambitious. There are some unresolved issues around the structure of the new division, the transition plan for existing…

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Education

Free Archived Webinars for LITA Members

| Jenny Levine
Free archived recordings for LITA members

The LITA Board recently voted to make webinars older than one year available for free to all LITA members, so we’ve begun posting recordings in the LITA Members community in ALA Connect. Once you’re logged in using your ALA username and password, you can browse to the community’s library of files or just go directly to the folder for archived webinars. Each year we’ll add the previous year’s recordings. Going forward, we also plan to archive recordings from our popular Top Tech Trends programs at the ALA Midwinter Meeting and Annual Conference. The 2018 TTT sessions from Midwinter and Annual are already archived in the community. In addition, audio recordings are available from nine of the sessions held at the 2018 LITA Forum. Attendees also took publicly-available collaborative notes in Google Docs to provide additional context, and many presenters shared their slides and handouts. While some of these non-webinar recordings are…

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News & Noteworthy

LITA Welcomes 2019 Emerging Leaders Kathryn Greer and Rachel Murdock

| Jenny Levine

ALA’s Emerging Leaders program enables newer library workers to participate in problem-solving work groups, network with peers, gain an inside look into ALA structure, and have an opportunity to serve the profession in a leadership capacity. Our 2019 ELs are: Kathryn Greer, Systems and Digital Content Librarian at Georgia Gwinnett College in Lawrenceville, Georgia Kathryn serves as an administrator of the library’s software and systems and as a library liaison to campus and consortial IT groups. She recently led her library’s transition to a new ILS as part of the University System of Georgia’s migration from Ex Libris Voyager to Alma, and in the spring will manage another consortial-led project for her institution, the implementation of the identity and access management service OpenAthens. She graduated from the Master of Library and Information Science program at Valdosta State University in December 2013. Kathryn recently enrolled in the Master of Science in Information Technology program…

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News & Noteworthy

Congratulations to Colby Lewis, Winner of the 2018 LITA/Ex Libris Student Writing Award

| Jenny Levine
Photo of Colby Lewis

Colby Lewis is the winner of the 2018 Student Writing Award sponsored by Ex Libris Group and the Library and Information Technology Association (LITA) for her paper titled “The Open Access Citation Advantage: Does It Exist and What Does It Mean for Libraries?” Lewis is a Master of Science in Information candidate at the University of Michigan School of Information. “Lewis’ paper was selected as the winner because it is an excellent treatment of a timely and important topic. The paper was educational, well-written, and provided a comprehensive review of the scholarship assessing the open access citation advantage,” said Eric Phetteplace, the Chair of this year’s selection committee. When notified she had won, Lewis remarked, “I am extremely excited and honored to accept the LITA/Ex Libris Writing Award for 2018. I would like to thank my family for all of their support and Professors Levine and Courant for encouraging me to submit…

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News & Noteworthy

Congratulations to Heather Moulaison Sandy, winner of the 2018 LITA/Library Hi Tech Award

| Jenny Levine|1 Comment
Photo of Heather Moulaison Sandy

Heather Moulaison Sandy has been named the winner of the 2018 LITA/Library Hi Tech Award for Outstanding Communication in Library and Information Technology. Emerald Publishing and the Library and Information Technology Association (LITA) sponsor the Award, which recognizes outstanding individuals or institutions for their long-term contributions in the area of Library and Information Science technology and its application. The Award Committee selected Moulaison Sandy because it was impressed with her extensive contributions to ongoing professional development across the discipline., which include five books and more than 25 peer-reviewed journal articles. Her work has been presented at over 100 local, national, and international venues in nearly 15 countries as well as at numerous online webinars and talks. Moulaison Sandy is Associate Professor at the iSchool at the University of Missouri and works primarily at the intersection of the organization of information and the online environment. She is a recipient of this…

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News & Noteworthy

Congratulations to Richard P. Smiraglia, winner of the 2018 LITA/OCLC Kilgour Research Award

| Jenny Levine|1 Comment
Photo of Richard Smiraglia

Richard P. Smiraglia has been selected as the recipient of the 2018 Frederick G. Kilgour Award for Research in Library and Information Technology, sponsored by OCLC and the Library and Information Technology Association (LITA). Dr. Smiraglia is a Professor in the Knowledge Organization Research Group of the iSchool at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, a Visiting Professor for 2016-2017 at DANS – Data Archives and Networked Services (a Division of the Royal Netherlands Academy of the Arts and Sciences) and Editor-in-Chief of the journal, Knowledge Organization. He has also been on the faculties of the Palmer School of Library and Information Science at Long Island University (1992-2009), the School of Library Service at Columbia University (1986-1992) and was Music Catalog Librarian at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (1974-1986). The Kilgour Award honors research relevant to the development of information technologies, especially work which shows promise of having a positive and…

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LITA Board of Directors

LITA Board Issues Statement Against the Ballot Measure and in Favor of the MLIS-Preferred for Next ALA Executive Director

| Jenny Levine|1 Comment
Vote in the 2018 ALA Elections

As ALA and LITA members prepared for the opening of the 2018 Election on March 12, the LITA Board discussed the issue of whether the MLIS should be required or preferred for the ALA Executive Director position and issued a statement supporting the ALA Council’s vote to make the MLIS preferred. The full statement is available on the LITA website. “LITA itself underwent an executive director search in 2015. Our job posting used ‘preferred,’ not ‘required,’ language for the MLS; the same is true of other ALA divisions which have recently hired executive directors. Our candidate pool included excellent candidates from both library backgrounds and association management backgrounds. Ultimately we were delighted to be able to hire an MLS-holder, but having candidates from varied perspectives both increased our ability to hire the best available talent and helped our search committee to clarify what it truly valued. The LITA Board values…

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General information

This is Jeopardy! Or, How Do People Actually Get On That Show?

| Chrishelle Thomas
Joanna Messer Kimmitt and Alex Trebek on Jeopardy!

This past November, American Libraries published a delightful article on librarians that have appeared on the iconic game show Jeopardy! It turns out one of our active LITA members also recently appeared on the show. Here’s her story… By Joanna Messer Kimmitt On Wednesday, October 18th, one of my lifelong dreams will come true: I’ll be a contestant on Jeopardy! It takes several steps to get onto the show: first, you must pass an online exam, but you don’t really learn the results unless you make it to the next stage: the invitation to audition. This step is completed in person, comprising a timed, written test, playing a mock game with other aspiring players in front of a few dozen other auditionees, and chatting amiably in a brief interview, all while being filmed. If you make it through this gauntlet, you go into “the pool”, where you remain eligible for a…

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