It goes without saying that most of us spend our days busily going about our work and only rarely stick our heads above water. Time passes quickly, though, and now that the fall is well underway for most of us, the time is nigh to stick our heads up, survey the environment and report on progress. The fall has been a busy one for me—October in particular seemed to involve packing and unpacking my increasingly battered suitcases more than usual. A big part of the October flurry of activity involved showing off the first year’s progress of the NSDL Registry (my primary project at the moment) at the Dublin Core Conference in Mexico and the NSDL Annual meeting in Washington, D.C. I’m happy to say that I’ll have the chance to introduce the registry to several ALA audiences at Midwinter, at the LITA Standards IG meeting (already announced), and the…
Month: November 2006
Forum 06 poster sessions
Sadly, I only had an hour between meetings, so I didn’t get to every poster session, but here at last are the notes I do have. A PDF of the session descriptions is available on the LITA web site. There was a good range of topics and library types represented. Instructional Media and Library Online Tutorials Li Zhang – Mississippi State University Online tutorials require far more than just duplicating print materials to the web. They currently have a large project to develop tutorials for both distance students and on-campus students. They’re trying to develop a single set of online tutorials that works for all of their audiences. Too many bells and whistles distract rather than inform. Their web committee found that including audio or video for too many pieces of a tutorial makes it unusable for people using older computers or dialup Internet access. Integrating Library Services: An application…
Office for Information Technology Policy (OITP) Update: Part 2
Alternate (possibly better) title: Participatory Networks: The Library as Conversation (oh wait, I already used the alternate title for a post) Continuing on with the program from Office for Information Technology Policy (OITP) Update: Part 1… (a teaser for this part of the session was as previously blogged on LITAblog, btw) Participatory Networks: The Library as Conversation Joanne Silverstein (jlsilver@syr.edu) Director of Research and Development Information Institute of Syracuse (iis.syr.edu) Information Institute of Syracuse was invited by the Office of Information Technology Policy at the ALA to write a White Paper about recent developments in Web-based innovations and their relationship to, and potential for use in libraries. Background: —Why call it “Participatory Networking”? .The authors propose “participatory networking†as a positive term and concept that libraries can use and promote without the confusion and limitations of previous language. The phrase “participatory network†has a history of prior use that can…
LITA Sponsors Michelle Boule in the ALA Emerging Leaders Program
The LITA Board is pleased to announce its sponsorship of Michelle Boule to the ALA Emerging Leaders Program. LITA had a number of excellent applicants. LITA has a very bright future with such bright, rising stars. ALA has selected 100 participants for the 2007 program. Each participant will attend leadership workshops at both ALA conferences in 2007. In addition, they will participate in an online working group between the conferences as they continue to grow as leaders. Each participant is expected to provide 2 years of service to ALA or one of its units. The LITA Board wishes to ensure that our Emerging Leader has a meaningful leadership experience within LITA. Michelle will work closely with the LITA President and President-elect, working most closely with the President-elect for continuity, on aspects of the LITA strategic plan implementation. Michelle Boule is indeed a LITA emerging leader. She was instrumental in starting…
Wikis : when are they the right answer?
Jason Griffey of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga presented a brief, bright and breezy look at the basics of wikis and their use in libraries to an attentive group of about 60 attendees at the end of day two of the 2006 LITA National Forum. The basic appeal of the wiki is that it is a modern day example of “Many people make for light workâ€. Wikis are designed to allow contributors to add to and revise the information on the site, so that the shape and scope do not have to be predetermined. In fact, wikis are a good choice when the shape and scope cannot be predetermined, and they can grow organically as new facts are added. They are good for dealing with “fringe“ items. Potential problems with wikis stem from the lack of control. Duplication, lack of cross references, and eventual entropy can make mature wikis…
The Spin on Thin : Thin Clients in Academic Libraries
On the final day of the 2006 LITA National Forum, Helene Gold, electronic services librarian at Eckerd College (St. Petersburg, Florida) described how thin clients are being integrated into the computing environment in the college’s new library. The 25 people who braved Forum-fatigue to attend were not disappointed by Helene’s engaging and accessible presentation. When Eckerd College decided to build a new library, it also decided to house the campus ITS department in the new building. The ITS department in turn decided to use the opportunity to install thin clients in the new facility to showcase the technology. This had both positive and negative ramifications– while the ITS staff was committed to making the project work, “buy in†by the library staff came more slowly. Thin clients Thin clients are relatively simple and durable devices that have no storage or computing power of their own but which can be used…