The PLTIG business meeting focused on further developing our program idea for Annual 2009. The program looks at how various libraries and consortia have used technology to bring their summer reading programs “online”–from patron front-ends to backends for creating statistical and tracking reports. (How many repeat customers did your summer reading program have this year?) Discussion focused on speaker selection, developing guidelines for speakers, preparing a resource list for attendees, and publicity options.
The group also discussed plans for Midwinter. Instead of hosting a managed discussion as we have done in the past, we decided simply to hold a business meeting. We’ll work further on the 2009 program at Midwinter as well as begin the process of planning for Annual 2010.
As part of the Midwinter discussion, we also touched on the perennial topic of “what’s the purpose of this IG?” We concluded that our purpose was to provide programming on technology topics of interest to persons in public libraries and that we’d do well to market ourselves to new members this way. We’re hoping that a narrower focus that’s more easy to get a handle on will help us attract new members.
So if your interested in technology in public libraries and want to get involved in programming at annual conferences, be sure to look us up at Midwinter.