2008

LITA Public Libraries Technology Interest Group Meeting

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…

2008

Top Tech Trends for ALA (Summer '08)

Here is a non-exhaustive list of Top Technology Trends for the American Library Association Annual Meeting (Summer, 2008). These Trends represent general directions regarding computing in libraries — short-term future directions where, from my perspective, things are or could be going. They are listed in no priority order. “Bling” in your website – I hate to admit it, but it seems increasingly necessary to make sure your institution’s website be aesthetically appealing. This might seem obvious to you, but considering the fact we all think “content is king” we might have to reconsider. Whether we like it or not, people do judge a book by its cover, and people do judge other’s on their appearance. Websites aren’t very much different. While librarians are great at organizing information bibliographically, we stink when it comes to organizing things visually. Think graphic design. Break down and hire a graphic designer, and temper their…

2007

Next Generation Libraries: The 2.0 Phenomenon

Next Generation Libraries: The 2.0 Phenomenon Stephen Abram Joe James Stephen’s Lighthouse blog for slides Change is coming and everyone will be effected. FaceBook – get your name and face out there. Let them know your name. Stand behind your word. Get libraries to evolve by de-cloaking. Show who they are and what their specialties are. MySpace merging with Yahoo. Thompson just bought Reuters. Google Scholar serves your students up to advertisers. Advertisers pay to be on first page. Libraries are more complicated than Fed Ex. They only deliver one way. We deliver it out and get it back. IM and Meebo allow you to have a conversation. IM research increase risk students learning because they are familiar with this technology.

Top Technology Trends

"Sum" Top Tech Trends for the Summer of 2007

Listed here are “sum” trends I see Library Land. They are presented in no particular order: 1. Gaming and Second Life – I hear a lot of noise about gaming, Second Life, and libraries. Hmmm… I consider librarianship to be about a number of processes surrounding data, information, and knowledge, specifically: 1) collection, 2) organization, 3) preservation, 4) dissemination, and 5) sometimes evaluation. I also consider the intended audiences for these processes in my definition. Oftentimes these audiences determine the types of libraries where the processes are carried out: academic, special, public, school, etc. Notice that I did not outline “how” these processes get accomplished. Since the “how” of these processes changes over time and with changes in technology, I do not think any “how” defines the core of librarianship. (Librarianship is not about books, MARC records, nor even Web pages because these are merely tools of the profession.) That…

2006

ETIG Program in the Big Easy: Audio Book 3.0 – The convergence of the mobile media lifestyle platform

This program will be held on Monday, June 26 from 8:00AM – 11AM in Rooms 340-341 at the (MCC) Morial Convention Center. ————————————————————————————————— Please Forward to anyone you know will be attending and would have an interest in this program!!! ————————————————————————————————— Please join the LITA Emerging Technology Interest Group for a product presentations, a panel discussion and an interactive question and answer session. The session title. Audio Book 3.0 – The convergence of the mobile media lifestyle platform. ( Please note this title on the program differs slightly, being named Ebook 3.0… While there will be a number of issues raised in the session regarding the way audio books and ebooks are also converging my original focus on ebooks 3.0 appears to be “bleeding edge” at this point and not just yet fully emerging. After extensive discussions with Sony, Apple, iRex and many others the newest push for eInk based…