ALA Midwinter Meetings

Midwinter Workshop Highlight: Meet the Field Research Presenter!

We asked our LITA Midwinter Workshop Presenters to tell us a little more about themselves and what to expect from their workshops in January. This week, we’re hearing from Wayne Johnston, who will be presenting the workshop: Developing mobile apps to support field research (For registration details, please see the bottom of this blog post) LITA: Can you tell us a little more about you? Wayne: I am currently Head of Research Enterprise and Scholarly Communication at the University of Guelph Library. Prior to joining the Library I worked for the United Nations in both New York and Geneva. My international experience includes work I’ve done in Ghana, Nepal, Croatia and Canada’s Arctic. LITA: Who is your target audience for this workshop? Wayne: I think this workshop will be most relevant to academic librarians who are supporting research activity on their campuses.  It may be of particular interest to those working…

2015

Midwinter Workshop Highlight: Meet the Programming Presenter!

We asked our LITA Midwinter Workshop Presenters to tell us a little more about themselves and what to expect from their workshops in January. This week, we’re hearing from Elizabeth Wickes, who will be presenting the workshop: Introduction to Practical Programming (For registration details, please see the bottom of this blog post) LITA: We’ve seen your formal bio but can you tell us a little more about you? Elizabeth: I once wrote an entire Python program just so I could have a legitimate reason to say “for skittle in skittles.”  Attendees will meet this program during the workshop.  I can also fix pretty much anything with hot glue.  LITA: Who is your target audience for this workshop? Elizabeth: This workshop speaks to the librarian or library student who is curious about programming and wants to explore it within a very library-centric context.  So many of the existing books and resources on programming…

2015

Midwinter Workshop Highlight: Meet the UX Presenters!

We asked our LITA Midwinter Workshop Presenters to tell us a little more about themselves and what to expect from their workshops in January. This week, we’re hearing from Kate Lawrence, Deirdre Costello, and Robert Newell, who will be presenting the workshop: From Lost to Found: How User Testing Can Improve the User Experience of Your Library Website (For registration details, please see the bottom of this blog post) LITA: We’ve seen your formal bios but can you tell us a little more about you? Kate: If I didn’t work as a user researcher, I would be a professional backgammon player or cake decorator (I am a magician with fondant!). Or both. Deirdre: I’m horse crazy! Robert: In a past life I was a professional actor. If you pay really really close attention (like, don’t blink), you might spot me in a few episodes of Friday Night Lights or Prison…

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

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…

2009

Ultimate Debate 2009

Sorry this is a little late, but there was some cleaning to be done on the blog before I could get it up. This is the audio capture from the Ultimate Debate 2009, from ALA Annual in Chicago. Great discussion, good questions, and an awesome program put on by IRSIG this year (and, frankly, every year).

2008

ALA Annual Feedback – Help LITA help you!

Did you attend a LITA program at the 2008 ALA Annual Conference? If so, please take a few moments to tell us what you thought of LITA’s programming by completing an evaluation; your honest, candid answers will assist us in providing quality programs in the future. Click on the link below or copy and paste it into your browser: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=oLUvesvZzmXutA3DhGEUKQ_3d_3d Please note, if you attended more than one LITA program, you will need to submit an evaluation separately for each program.