LITA’s tenth year of Top Tech Trends July 12 was likely its best attended ever–thanks to free wi-fi in the room, live streaming video from Shanachies, and a live blog to aggregate tweets from attendees (real and virtual) using hashtags #toptech and #ttt09 or giving comments or questions directly on the blog. While ALA is … Continue reading #toptech #ala2009
Comic books have finally won their long battle for legitimacy, affirmed Charles Brownstein, opening a program on censorship and graphic novels sponsored by ALA's Intellectual Freedom Committee. Noting that every library that matters now collects graphic novels and material that was once condemned is now lauded, Brownstein—executive director of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, … Continue reading When Graphic Novels Get Too Graphic
Some 525 librarians and library supporters—a virtual who's who of librarianship—spent yesterday evening in the new wing of the Art Institute of Chicago, entralled by its splendor and by the speakers who gathered to help the Freedom to Read Foundation celebrate its 40th anniversary and pay tribute to its founder, Judith Krug, who died April … Continue reading Freedom to Read Foundation Celebrates 40 Years and the Life of Judith Krug
Cokie Roberts discussed the writing and updating of her book We Are Our Mother's Daughters, and her research into the roles of women throughout American history for it, before a crowd of about 700 at the PLA President's Program. "I, of course, use libraries all the time in doing research on these history books," Roberts … Continue reading Cokie Roberts Examines Changing–and Unchanging–Roles of Women
“From Legacy Data to Linked Data: Preparing Libraries for Web 3.0,” drew enough of an audience that some had to listen from the hallway. Data objects and agents already have identifiers, explained Diane Hillmann of the Information Institute of Syracuse and Metadata Management Associates. In linked data, however, relationships between data also have identifiers. That … Continue reading Data Power through Data Linking
LITA's tenth year of Top Tech Trends July 12 was likely its best attended ever–thanks to free wi-fi in the room, live streaming video from Shanachies, and a live blog to aggregate tweets from attendees (real and virtual) using hashtags #toptech and #ttt09 or giving comments or questions directly on the blog. While ALA is … Continue reading #toptech #ala2009
Sunday morning's PR Forum featured a panel of five experts who offered tips and tactics that will help libraries get their stories told through both new and traditional media. The program was sponsored by the PR Assembly of the ALA Public Awareness, supported by ALA Public Information Office staff. First up was longtime Chicago broadcaster … Continue reading How libraries can work with the media
Wanda Urbanska signs copies of Less Is More. “The disease of overconsumption is on its death bed,” proclaimed Simple Living host Wanda Urbanska during her Auditorium Speaker Series speech, sponsored by American Libraries. As evidence, she cited three primary indicators, which she nicknamed “Heat, Feed, and Speed.” “Heat” refers to decreasing energy requirements for … Continue reading Urbanska Sees Positive Signs for Green Libraries
Oak Park Public Library Warrior Librarians Dressed in Viking armor and braids and performing to “Ride of the Valkyries,” the Oak Park (Ill.) Public Library Warrior Librarians took first place in the fifth annual Library Book Cart Drill Team Championship, winning a gold book cart from sponsor Demco before a standing-room-only crowd. For the first … Continue reading Valkyries Ride to Drill Team Victory
To anyone attending an ALA conference, viewing the many attendees toting laptops or sporting smartphones and the exhibit hall dominated by high-tech vendors, it’s inescapable how pervasive technology has become in our society; in developing countries, it’s obviously another story. “Technology and the Developing World,” a Saturday-morning program presented by the Library and Information Technology … Continue reading Bringing Technology to the Developing World
The knotty issue of net neutrality—the principle that network providers should not discriminate in the sites or applications they provide access to—and its implications for libraries was deftly explicated by a panel of experts assembled Sunday morning by the Library Information and Technology Association. Carrie Lowe, Gregory Jackson, and Clifford Lynch Clifford Lynch, director of … Continue reading Choosing Sides on Net Neutrality
The same day that National Security Archive Director Tom Blanton keynoted the ALA President’s Program, a front-page article in the New York Times revealed that former Vice President Dick Cheney ordered the Central Intelligence Agency to withhold information from Congress about a secret counterterrorism program. Blanton noted that as President Gerald Ford’s chief of staff, … Continue reading President’s Program: Secrets Expert Tells All
