2009

Top Tech Trends from Karen Coombs

Its Top Tech Trend time again. Every time I’m asked to come up with trends I sort of get a pit in the bottom of my stomach. How to choose trends? Should I choose tech things that have changed they way I think about technology this year? How specific or narrow should my trends me? How accessible to non-techies Also, I worry about getting a diversity of opinions and people feeling they the trends the trendsters put forward are too general or obvious. Picking trend is hard for all these reasons, plus you don’t want to pick something that turns out to not really be a trend. So, this time I’m categorizing my trends a bit. My personal A-HA trend Web applications which are extremely flexible, versatile and extendable. For me the app that has typified this in my work this year is Drupal. Drupal is a veritable swiss army…

Top Technology Trends

Virtual Karen's Top Tech Trends

Sarah Houghton-Jan (see her summary and trends) and I participated in Top Tech Trends virtually this past Sunday. It was a blast. I had a little easier time hearing than Sarah, although hearing myself speak was slightly disconcerting. I really enjoyed talking with people in the back channel Meebo chat room. Though some people pointed out that that was distracting from the panelist present in person. APIs Galore Let’s be realistic APIs have hit their stride on the web at large. In libraries they are starting to come into their own as well. However, our focus in libraries has thus far been on bibliographic data. This isn’t the only data of value out there. Libraries need to think about how to use APIs to get digital objects like photos and videos in and out of web-based media service providers like Flickr and Blip.tv . If we do this we will…

2008

Minutes for the BIGWIG meeting at ALA Midwinter 2008 (1/13/2008)

Agenda 1. Questions regarding podcasts for LITA office candidates 2. Discussion on BIGWIG & Transparency 3. Conference podcasting 4. Brainstorm potential topics for social software showcase 5. ideas for interactivity or innovation for LITA forum 1. Questions for podcasts for LITA elections (Karen Coombs) Podcasts for LITA candidates contained these questions last year: 1. Briefly describe your professional experience as it relates to holding LITA office 2. What do you bring to this position? 3. How do you envision LITA being a technology leader in ALA? These informal podcasts were about 5 minutes long. David Lee King did these last year and will continue in this role for the next set of Candidates. The BIGWIG members present agreed that the set of questions was good. 2 BIGWIG & Transparency (Michelle Boule) The Leadership of this interest group believes in and wants to exercise radical transparency for all discussions and decisions…

2008

BIGWIG Business Meeting at Midwinter

The business meeting for BIGWIG (Blogs, Interactive Groupware, Wiki Interest Group) will take place on Sunday 1/13/2008 from 10:30 am to noon in Room 307B of the Philadelphia Conference Center. We currently have the following agenda items for the meeting. 1. Questions for LITA election podcasts 2. BIGWIG and Transparency 3. Conference podcasting: Guidelines, Procedures, Plans for Annual. 4. Social Software Showcase topic brainstorming For further information about the Interest Group contact Karen A. Coombs or Jason Griffey

Top Technology Trends

Karen Coombs' Top Technology Trends

This year at ALA will be my first appearance as part of the LITA Top Tech Trends panel. Since I was asked to be part of TTT 2 months ago, I’ve been thinking a lot about the possible trends I want to talk about. Many possible trend topics have gone through my head. However, I realize with ALA fast approaching that I’m only really going to get 5 minutes to talk about my trends. So if I want to do them justice, really I can only talk about 3 things. That being said, I thought it might be worthwhile if I posted here trends that have caught my eye / crossed my mind. KGS has done something similar to this with her trends in the past and I like the discussion it sparks. Below are a few trends that have been kicking about in my head. Proliferation of Open Source…