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…
Tag: ala
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…
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…
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…
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…
LITA hashtags
Emerging ALA Leaders Team O has complied a list of LITA-related tags for ease of following LITA programs. Head on over to the ALA Annual wiki and check it out
Casting a Wide Net: Using Screencasts to Reach and Teach Library Users
Speakers: Stephanie Rosenblatt, Eric Frierson, Carmen Kazakoff ,Mick Jacobsen Moderated by: Anne Houston Date time place: Saturday July 11, 2009 from 10:30am – 12:00pm at McCormick Place South, S105 a-d Sponsor: Reference User Services Association, Machine Assisted Reference Section (RUSA MARS)
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).
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.
Electronic Resources Management Interest Group: Friday, June 27th, 6:30-8:00pm
SUSHI– Standardized Usage Statistics Harvesting Initiative (SUSHI) update: http://www.niso.org/workrooms/sushi Adam Chandler presented an overview of what was happening with SUSHI – it’s available at http://www.niso.org/workrooms/sushi/info/SUSHI_ALA_Annual_2008-nisoupdate.ppt. First he gave some background on SUSHI itself. SUSHI uses the COUNTER schema – it’s a protocol for moving statistics between two systems. Just the exchange – COUNTER actually codifies what’s in the reports. He presented conceptual diagrams of how the information is exchanged. Then he talked about a survey of content providers and consolidators done in May 2008. Most consolidators plan to have support for SUSHI 1.5 by late 2008 or one in early 2009. Content providers were mostly going to implement in 2009, although some would be early, and some are still deciding. Adam also called for volunteers for the NISO steering group, especially those with access to data such as those who work for a consortium. He also called for “Sushi Shokunin