Category: 2006

Slides are available here for Evolutions in Subject Searching: the Use of Topic Maps in Libraries with Steve Newcomb, co-founder of topicmaps.org and a co-author of a topic maps standard, and Patrick Durusau, on the board of TEI as well as involved in other markup standards organizations (didn’t catch them all). I had assumed this session would be about things like AquaBrowser, but in fact, it was about an approach to representing knowledge in an expandable, shareable data structure. Apparently topic maps and XML-based topic maps are big in a whole other context outside the library world, wherever people are managing industrial quantities of knowledge or documents. Basically, this talk addressed the structural underpinnings of one way to do a semantic map of a domain, and be able to construct a crosswalk to another domain using the same map. Sounds very labor-intensive. One thing I learned is that in the…

Since we’re in Nashville, of course our first keynote is Saving America’s Treasures: Preservation of Rare Acetate and Vinyl Recording Transcriptions, featuring speakers from the Country Music Hall of Fame & Museum. John Rumble spoke, with Alan Stoker and Steve Maer to answer content and technical questions. The Hall of Fame is run by the non-profit Country Music Foundation. Originally it just had a few costumes and instruments; a library was started in 1972. A record company and a collector donated the initial archive holdings, including never-played discs and rare recordings. Through judicious trading and selling of duplicates, the archive has been able to expand its collection on a shoestring. Now they have records, CDs, tapes, and many old and rare metal-based acetate discs, even glass-based discs and cylinder recordings. Some of the oldest discs are chipped, peeling, cracked, even moldy. Some were never intended to last — they were…

For those among us who are blogging the keynote presentations at LITA Forum, the row of chairs along the back row of the room have extra outlets scattered among them. As well, while there is no free wireless (boooo) there are evidently ethernet jacks randomly around the rooms which are live, so you can get Interweb that way, if you don’t pay for the hotel wifi.

Throughout the day today, and over the weekend, there will be a number of bloggers covering the various happenings here in Nashville at LITA Forum 2006. Be on the lookout for great content, and please join in the conversation. If anyone has questions about LITA Blog during the Forum, I can be reached at jason-griffey at utc dot edu, or more immediately via AIM at utcrefJason. EDIT: I just realized that without a formal blogger’s room, people might not find me, especially if you don’t know what I look like. So, if you need to know, here I am (thanks for the picture, Iris). Have a great Forum!

LITA Forum in wonderful Nashville is just around the corner. LITA Blog will be there to report the goings on and important conversations for those of us who will be stuck in less fun areas of the country. LITA Blog is successful because of the great volunteers we have for every conference. Looking for new ways to get involved? This is a great opportunity. You can see the entire schedule for Forum here. If you would like to volunteer, please email me, Michelle Boule, and let me know what sessions you would like to cover and if you are new to LITA Blog. I will be coordinating volunteers from afar this year and Jason Griffey will be the on-site blog coordinator.

ALA OITP and the Information Institute of Syracuse have written a first draft technology brief on participatory networks and interactive social networking. Comments and participation by interested parties are welcome. (wiki and discussion forum) For information about the project, please see the project’s About Page. The draft document will be presented and discussed at the LITA NAtional Forum in Nashville at the end of October; the finalized document will be presented in mid-November.

The early registration deadline for the 2006 National Forum in Nashville has been extended to *September 1*. Additional information describing the concurrent sessions and poster sessions, as well as the conference schedule, has been added to the Forum website: http://www.lita.org/forum06 Don’t miss this opportunity to network with fellow LITA-ites while taking in some informative sessions on facetted searching, updates on standards, blogs, wikis, podcasts, digital repositories, multimedia tutorials and more.

Your 2006 LITA Forum Planning Committee and the LITA Office have been hard at work preparing for this year’s Forum which will be held in Nashville, TN from October 26-29. The Forum website has been updated with links to the online registration form and hotel registration in the Sheraton Nashville Downtown Hotel. Register now to save $50 off the regular registration rate; this offer ends on August 15th! A special room rate of $109/night for single or double occupancy is available at the conference hotel using the reservation link from the Forum website: http://www.lita.org/forum06. More information on the concurrent sessions and the schedule will go up on the Forum website as we get closer to the dates of the Forum, so please check the website for updates. Content this year includes: Two full day preconferences to provide opportunities for hand-on experiences and in-depth discussions: Open Source Software Installfest Developing Best…

Registration is now open for the 2006 LITA Forum.