Feb 14

LITA Forum Call for Proposals: Reminder

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Due date for proposals: February 25, 2013

The 2013 National Forum Committee seeks proposals for high quality pre-conferences, concurrent sessions and poster sessions for the 16th annual LITA National Forum to be held in Louisville, Kentucky, November 7-10, 2013.

The 2013 theme is Creation, Collaboration, Community

The Forum Committee welcomes pre-conferences, presentations, and interactive programs related to all types of libraries: public, school, academic, government, special, and corporate. Proposals should relate to the themes of creation, empowering library users, collaboration, cooperation, and building or engaging communities. Proposals may cover projects, plans, ideas, or recent discoveries. We accept proposals on any aspect of library and information technology.

The committee particularly invites submissions from first time presenters, library school students, and individuals from diverse backgrounds.

The Forum Committee is especially interested in presentations highlighting projects that involve the creation of library spaces, the maker movement, and innovative solutions to pragmatic problems. It also encourages sessions that are hands-on.

Possible ideas for topics might include:

  • Maker spaces/Maker Movement
  • Creation of New Library Spaces
  • Data Curation
  • Discovery
  • User Experience
  • Web Services
  • Coding
  • Digital Libraries
  • Institutional Repositories

Presentations must have a technological focus and pertain to libraries. Presentations that incorporate audience participation are encouraged. Sessions can be full-day pre-conferences, concurrent sessions (50 minutes), or poster sessions. The format of the presentations may include single- or multi-speaker formats, panel discussions, moderated discussions, case studies and/or demonstrations of projects.

Vendors wishing to submit a proposal should partner with a library representative who is testing/using the product.

Presenters will submit draft presentation slides and/or handouts on ALA Connect in advance of the Forum and will submit final presentation slides or electronic content (video, audio, etc.) to be made available on the web site following the event. Presenters are expected to register and participate in the Forum as attendees; discounted registration will be offered.

Submit proposals to: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dEpzV2N6Unh3UlBsVzBhZ1BRX3dfZUE6MQ

The online form will ask for:

  • Contact information
  • Title
  • Program Description (100 Words) (Please exclude any information identifying the presenter(s) or his/her/their organization.)
  • Participatory elements of the presentation
  • Level indicator (Introducing, Implementing, Innovating)
  • Brief biographical information
  • Whether you would like to consider a paper in ITAL based upon your talk
  • Do you agree to be streamed: yes or no

You will be notified about the status of your proposal by mid-April, 2013

About Louisville:

Ranked as the #1 US travel destination for 2013 by Lonely Planet, Louisville is moving beyond its reputation for horses and bourbon and gaining a reputation as a cultural hotspot in its own right. With a dynamic, newly revitalized downtown area, vibrant food and arts scenes, and a variety of interesting museums, Louisville offers exciting travel opportunities for all types of visitors.

Any questions regarding the Forum? Please contact the LITA Office: lita (at) ala.org; (312) 280-4268

Feb 13

LITA Candidate Interviews

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Ever wanted to know more about the candidates running for the offices that represent you in ALA matters? Well, here’s your chance.

I’m Steve Thomas, host of Circulating Ideas, and I am going to be interviewing (nearly) everyone on the ballot for LITA positions and a fair number of other ALA positions. I’d like the input of LITA members, to find out what you want to know, what issues you think need to be addressed by your elected officials.

If you’d like to have your question considered for inclusion in the interviews, please visit here and you can up- or down-vote other questions while you’re there. While you’re in a question-asking mood, you can also visit here to ask questions of the ALA Presidential candidates.

Thanks for helping to make LITA a better-informed division!

(Also, if you’re running for office, want to be on the show and haven’t yet spoken to me, please contact me ASAP)

Feb 13

Jobs in Technologies: February 13

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New vacancy listings are posted weekly on Wednesday at approximately 12 noon Central Time. They appear under New This Week and under the appropriate regional listing. Postings remain on the LITA Job Site for a minimum of four weeks.

New This Week

Assistant Professor- Science Librarian-pos#8657 , Atkins Library- UNC Charlotte,  Charlotte, NC

 
Records and Library Services Manager, Barr Engineering Co, Minneapolis. MN


Reference and Instruction Librarian, Penn State Brandywine Campus,  The Pennsylvania State University Libraries

Philadelphia, PA


Systems Administrator, State University Libraries, Manhattan, KS

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

 

Feb 13

So, what’s the deal with committees, anyway?

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Good question, and I’m glad you asked. I need your help with that.

LITA has 20 committees to which members must be appointed annually by the Vice-President. We also send representatives to twenty other committees, groups, task forces and organizations. Some terms are multi-year; some committee members can be reappointed; some chairs come from the pool of members already on the committee; some representatives serve in that capacity by virtue of their position on a committee. Some committees do a lot of work between conferences in virtual meetings, and some don’t. Some committees submit program proposals for Midwinter and Annual conference, and some don’t.

TL;DR? It’s complicated, and I need about 100 people to fill spots that are opening up. I’m going to attack it one committee at a time, so watch this space for a call to action and more information about the committee of the week (roughly).

Have you already volunteered to serve on a committee using the infamous form? GREAT! I have that information. If you have an itch to drop me a line regarding a particular job, that’s great too, do it! Do you know a new LITA member who would be a fantastic committee member? Rat them ou–I mean suggest them! I also collected a lot of photos of badges at Midwinter. If you remember me taking a photo of your badge but you haven’t yet volunteered for a particular committee, please feel free to. (NB: that form is behind a login. Use your ALA credentials. Sorry about that.)

More soon… appointments are supposed to be completed by May, so that interested volunteers can attend meetings during Annual (in person or virtual, we don’t care which!). Do note that your actual appointments begin AFTER Annual, but it’s always good to know what you’re in for.

Questions? Please ask! You can find me @cinditrainor on twitter, at cindiann at that mail from google, or using my Connect contact form.

Feb 12

Tell us what you envision for LITA

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Were you unable to attend LITA’s Town Meeting at Midwinter 2013 in Seattle? We would still like to hear from you!

Please take a few minutes to complete this survey and give the LITA leadership your thoughts on what works in LITA and what you’d like to see LITA become.

Not a LITA member? No worries, we want to hear from you, too!

Thank you from your friendly, neighborhood VP. :)

Feb 06

Jobs in Technologies: Februrary 6

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New vacancy listings are posted weekly on Wednesday at approximately 12 noon Central Time. They appear under New This Week and under the appropriate regional listing. Postings remain on the LITA Job Site for a minimum of four weeks.

New This Week

Information Sciences and Business Liaison Librarian, The Pennsylvania State University Libraries, University Park, PA

Project Manager, Federal Reserve Board,  Washington, DC

Research and Instruction Librarian,  Middlebury College,  Middlebury, VT

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

Jan 28

Join us during the Town Meeting, from wherever you are

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Hi, everyone!

This year’s Town Meeting will be Monday, January 28, from 8:30 – 10:00 PDT, in room 302 of the Convention Center.  We will be streaming audio, and we welcome your participation via IRC and a Google Doc.  Here are the details:

Because of the wifi challenges, the Town Meeting is a bit broken up on the recordings. The recording is in three parts, but almost the entire thing is available. :-) The challenges of streaming and recording at conferences seemingly never end. Thanks for your patience and interest.

Part the First


Video streaming by Ustream

Part the Next


Video streaming by Ustream

Part the Last


Video streaming by Ustream

Live video from your iPhone using Ustream

  • IRC: #litatm (instructions below)
  • Google Doc
  • Please tag your tweets with #litatm

Please note the chat will be logged for future reference and projected in the room for the benefit of those without devices, as will the Google Doc.

Join us in IRC chat. Never done IRC before? It’s easy!

  • Go to : http://webchat.freenode.net/
  • Type in your nickname of choice.
  • Type in #litatm in Channels.
  • You don’t need to click the Auth to services box.
  • You do need to fill in the CAPTCHA.
  • Some codes will scroll through the status tab, and then a #litatm tab will open.
  • You are in! Say hi and chat with us :)
  • When you want to leave type /quit
  • Type /me to refer yourself as your nick in the 3rd person.  (If you type “/me likes this”, it will show up as “yournickname likes this”.)
<I>These draw heavily from Bohyun Kim’s IRC instructions. Thanks, Bohyun!  And thanks to Andromeda Yelton, too! :) </i>
Jan 27

LITA Top Tech Trends – ALA Midwinter 2013

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Below will be the live stream for the LITA Top Tech Trends panel at ALA Midwinter 2013 in Seattle, WA! We’ll be live at 10:30am Pacific Time, and after the show will embed the recording here as well. Enjoy!

Topic: If Data resides in a Cloud environment, is it still mine?
Panelists: Roy Tennant, Bess Sadler, Todd Carpenter, Carl Grant (moderator), John Law, Mackenzie Smith, Julie Speer
Tweet questions to us with hashtag #alamwttt

Part One, just a few minutes of recording before the wifi went crazy.


Video streaming by Ustream

We missed 8 or so minutes of conversation, then got it running again for Part Two.


Video streaming by Ustream