LITA is pleased to announce the 2011 winner of the Frederick G. Kilgour Award for Research in Library and Information Technology, Daniel J. Cohen. Dr. Cohen is an associate professor of history and art history at George Mason University and the director of the Center for History and New Media. The committee chose Dr. Cohen from a strong field of nominated leaders whose work have positively impacted libraries and information technology. 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…
LITA Preconferences Available at ALA Annual
There is still time to save $25 on your Annual Conference Registration – the Early Bird Deadline is Friday, March 4. Why not put that savings toward one of LITA’s three preconference offerings? All LITA Preconferences are full-day workshops held on Friday, June 24 9:00 am-4:30 pm: Getting Started with Drupal Speakers: Nina McHale, University of Colorado Denver; Rachel Vacek, University of Houston This preconference session will provide a thorough introduction to the Drupal content management system. Librarian Drupalers Rachel Vacek and Nina McHale will guide attendees as they create Drupal sites in a sandbox environment, covering the basics of content creation, themes, modules, and user management. Previous web experience helpful, but not required. Concludes with demonstrations of innovative Drupal sites, including library sites, library intranets, and an electronic journal. User Experience Design for Websites Speaker: Sarah Houghton-Jan, San Jose Public Library Learn how and why to create positive user…
Call for Proposals: 2011 LITA National Forum
The 2011 LITA National Forum Committee seeks proposals for high quality preconferences (8 hrs.), concurrent sessions (50 minutes) and poster sessions for the 14th annual LITA National Forum to be held in St. Louis, Missouri, September 29-October 2, 2011. The 2011 theme is: Rivers of Data, Currents of Change Due Date for proposals: February 18, 2011 The committee is especially interested in receiving proposals about projects that are experimental and demonstrate risk-taking. Find additional information and submit a proposal at: http://connect.ala.org/node/113177.
LITA Board Affirms Openness and Transparency
On January 8, 2011, a member of the LITA Board began an unannounced live video stream of the Board’s first session during ALA Midwinter. This action raised several complex policy and legal questions that could not be answered on the spot, some of which involved legal liability. Following a brief discussion, the board voted to cease streaming, pending discussion and resolution of those policy and legal questions. We are saddened that this incident has been interpreted by some as an affront to the open sharing of Association content and proceedings. The LITA Board is committed to fostering openness and transparency in its operations and communications. We are dedicated in particular to extending the rich programming and discussion that LITA fosters by reaching out to the LITA online community and pursuing the technological infrastructure and policy necessary to capture and stream high-quality content to the membership. The Board is currently developing…
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.
Video: Top Tech Trends panel, Midwinter San Diego (2011)
The archived video of Top Tech Trends is now available on the LITA Ustream Channel.
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….
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…
Watch as the world (and Jason Griffey) interview Vernor Vinge
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Top Tech Trends LiveBlog
Join us Sunday January 9, 2011 for the Top Technology Trends panel. The session will be live-blogged by TTT committee members; the live blog will also capture any messages posted to twitter with the hashtag #alamwttt. LITA Top Tech Trends Midwinter 2011 You can also watch the video stream here.