Openness was a key theme at the “Top Technology Trends” session Sunday morning at the 2014 ALA Midwinter Meeting in Philadelphia.
“We are in the business of making resources available, and we shouldn’t forget that,” said Emily Gore, director for content of the Digital Public Library of America. Gore was one of five panelists speaking to an estimated 200 attendees at LITA’s popular event reporting on changes and advances in technology.
Each panelist and the moderator shared what they see as the next big trends in technology.
Moderator Monique Sendze, associate director of information technology at Douglas County (Colo.) Libraries:
- Big Data;
Brett Bonfield, director of Collingswood (N.J.) Public Library:
- Women in technology;
- Lavabit, Fastmail, and privacy;
- Making FOIA more participatory with tools such as FOIAMachine, Muckrock, and Alaveteli;
- The Security and Exchange Commission’s decision to lift the general ban on online solicitation;
- Making digital permanence more available (primarily perma.cc);
- Slow communication;
Emily Gore, director for content at DPLA:
- Open data;
- APIs;
John Shank, associate instructional design librarian and director of the Center for Learning and Teaching at Penn State Berks College:
- Open educational resources (particularly interactive ones);
- Mashable browser web apps;
Leslie Johnston, chief of repository development at the Library of Congress:
- Digital computer forensics;
Lisa Bunker, social media librarian at Pima County (Ariz.) Public Library:
- Creating a community online;
- Hashtags;
- Real-time spontaneity.
“Openness encourages imagination,” said Shank. When discussing Open Educational Resources (OER), he said one trend is the move toward making textbooks more available to students in higher education through digital access. “When you start doing anything in a digital format, the imagination can fly,” Shank said, referring to the ability to embed video, podcasts, apps, quizzes, and other more interactive methods of learning.
