2005

Keep Those Cards and Letters Coming…

Most of you (except Poor Pitiful LITA Councilor) are back at work and dealing with the onslaught of post-conference catch-up. But know that your conference posts have been appreciated, read, and enjoyed! At yesterday’s meeting, LITA Board members had many fine things to say about all your efforts. Reporters from Library Journal and American Libraries, our version of the MSM (Mainstream Media), have been following your posts, as well. I plan to complement Will’s “Federated Search” program write-up with a post once I get home, since, after arriving late, I caught the last speaker, which he missed, and I also snagged all the handouts. Will did such a great job on that post that I hesitate to even touch the topic, but I’ll try. I also have notes from the Google Scholar/Print talk, though I may just comment on Leo’s fine writeup. If you have notes from things you attended,…

2005

The Delicate Process Dance

(Btw: we have over 80 posts on this blog. Woohoo!) I’m sitting here in ALA Council listening to discussion about the recommendations from the Task Force on Library School Closings. Earlier today I negotiated discussions about two draft resolutions, one on biometrics and one on RFID, and offered to bring the matter to LITA. When someone from IFC asked me why LITA needed to weigh in–after all, OITP had reviewed the resolutions, wasn’t that enough–I said that LITA’s strategic plan notes that emerging technologies is one of its central concerns. I did not add that it’s really good for LITA members to be continually challenged to think about intellectual freedom issues related to technology–and it’s really good for other divisions to be reminded that all library and information science professionals, including LITA’s members, have a place at the table on cross-cutting intellectual freedom issues, particularly issues that are so clearly…

2005

LITA President’s Program

I was intrigued by the opening questions Michael Lesk posed in the LITA President’s Program. “Notwithstanding technical, economic, or legal obstacles, how much will people want to read online? And what will it mean to them?” Yet as I sat in the front row I struggled to stay awake. My adrenaline level had fallen down, down, down, my metabolism bottoming out on a serious post-presentation sag from the effort and stress of being on the Top Tech Trends panel, and though Lesk was lively and funny, I drifted in and out of sleep, my head occasionally bumping the shoulder of the ITAL editor. Every once in a while I would jerk awake long enough to catch a bon mot or acute observation. Regarding the truism that monkeys on a keyboard could eventually produce the works of Shakespeare, Lesk drily noted, “The web has proven that this is not true.” His…

2005

Oh! Obama!

(n.b. Man oh man, you LITA bloggers rock!) If it weren’t for Heidi I know I wouldn’t be sitting here live-blogging the Opening General Session, because my brain wanted to be here but my body was telling me otherwise. “Go to the hotel bar and get a glass of wine,” my feet were saying, even though my mind said “But it’s BARACK, and don’t you want to say someday you remember when President Obama spoke to ALA?” Time for a little help from my friends. With Heidi’s encouragement, just a cab ride later we were in the huge cave of the McCormick’s North Hall, soaking up the mounting excitement and basking in Mayor Daley’s library-uxurious comments (“The federal government should not interfere with libraries. The federal government should be helping libraries!”). The Senator is up on the stage now. He’s cracking jokes about being a rambunctious kid who had to…

2005

A Very Long Tail Indeed

Note: expect a lag on many LITA blog postings, since Internet access is sparse and spotty (wifi in McCormick is only available in three spots, and many of us will be covering events in hotels we aren’t staying at, where wifi would be an extra charge for us) and many of us are in the “eye of the storm,” running from event to event from early in the morning until late at night. Press your ear against the wall, celebrate the confluence of the Web and niche marketing, keep your eyes on “That damned, elusive Pimpernel,” and think big-picture, long-view about preservation and access for digital content. Those were just a few of the ideas that came out of Friday’s OCLC symposium, Mining the Long Tail, held to an overflow crowd in Hilton’s eponymous Grand Ballroom, a huge, elegant venue dripping with gilt, mirror, and crystal. The Long Tail concept…

2005

Discount WiFi at McCormick

Wifi at McCormick Center can be purchased for $25 for the entire ALA conference (June 24-29) by going to Conference Services. I know this was posted to a couple of lists earlier, but I just got IM’ed that an ALA member asking at the registration desk was met with blank stares, so if people are asking, pass the word. This was negotiated by ALA just prior to the conference. Wifi can also be purchased a la carte for $9.95 a day, the standard McCormick price (compare to Boston at $25 a day–clearly a service where prices have no bearing on reality).

Top Technology Trends

Karen’s Uber-Trend

I’m tempted to respond in kind to some of the lively posts about Top Tech Trends I’ve read on this blog. But I don’t have much to add about web services, the eternally backwards ILS, or standards-clueless vendors, other than “you post for me.” I particularly enjoyed Leo Klein’s discussion of his MEGO response (Mine Eyes Glaze Over) to traditional “fat client” virtual reference software, and Sarah and Leo’s accolades for lightweight IM clients. Sometimes I wonder what a refrigerator designed by librarians would look like–and how long it would take to chill food. But to get back to my point, in thinking about top technology trends affecting libraries, I tried to step beyond the specific trends I see in society and look at the changes for the last several decades. (In other words, I tried to be Cliff, without the brains or the leather jacket.) In doing so I…