LITA Highlights at 2016 ALA Annual Conference

Complete LITA schedule with room assignments coming soon

View all LITA events in the conference scheduler

First Time ALA Annual Conference Attendees

We've put together an informal web page with some information and links of interest to help you navigate what can be an overwhelming first experience. Check out the page, relax and meet some colleagues and have a good and interesting time.

LITA Preconference: Friday, June 24, 1:00 pm - 4:00 pm

Technology Tools and Transforming Librarianship (LIT3)

Orange County Convention Center, Room W107

Presenters: Lola Bradley, Reference Librarian, Upstate University; Breanne Kirsch, Coordinator of Emerging Technologies, Upstate University; Jonathan Kirsch, Librarian, Spartanburg County Public Library; Rod Franco, Librarian, Richland Library; Thomas Lide, Learning Engagement Librarian, Richland Library

Technology envelops every aspect of librarianship, so it is important to keep up with new technology tools and find ways to use them to improve services and better help patrons. This hands-on, interactive preconference will teach six to eight technology tools in detail and show attendees the resources to find out about 50 free technology tools that can be used in all libraries. There will be plenty of time for exploration of the tools, so please BYOD! You may also want to bring headphones or earbuds.

Registration Information:

Rates

LITA Member $205
ALA Member $270
Non-Member $335

How-to

To register for any of these events, you can include them with your initial conference registration or add them later using the unique link in your email confirmation. If you don't have your registration confirmation handy, you can request a copy by emailing alaannual@compusystems.com. You also have the option of registering for a preconference only. LITA members should automatically recieve the discount pricing during the registration process.

Register online for a LITA Preconference which is an ALA ticketed event.
Call ALA Registration at 1-866-513-0760
Onsite registration will also be accepted in Orlando if the session is not already sold out.

Interest Groups Discussion Sessions

Find days, times and locations of LITA Interest Groups discussions using this scheduler link.

Check out this page for fuller descriptions for some of the discussion sessions

LITA Open House, Friday June 24, 2016, 3:00 pm - 4:00 pm

Rosen Centre, Room Salon 09/10

LITA Open House is a great opportunity for current and prospective members to talk with Library and Information Technology Association (LITA) leaders and learn how to make connections and become more involved in LITA activities.

Imagineering - Science Fiction/Fantasy and Information Technology: Where we are and Where We Could Have Been, Saturday June 25, 2016, 1:00 pm - 2:30 pm

Orange County Convention Center, Room W208

Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature have a unique ability to speculate about things that have never been, but can also be predictive about things that never were. Through the lens provided by alternate history/counterfactual literature one can look at how the world might have changed if different technologies had been pursued. For examples what if instead of developing microprocessors computing depended on vacuum tubes or something fantastic like the harmonies in the resonance of crystals? Join LITA, the Imagineering Interest Group, and a panel of distinguished Science Fiction and Fantasy writers as they discuss what the craft can tell us about not only who we are today, but who, given a small set of differences, we could have been. The availability of authors can change, currently slated authors are:

Charlie Jane Anders -- All the Birds in the Sky
Katherine Addison -- The Goblin Emperor
Catheryne Valente -- Radiance
Brian Staveley -- The Providence of Fire

Sunday Afternoon with LITA, June 26, 2016

Top Technology Trends

1:00 pm - 2:30 pm
Orange County Convention Center, Room W109B

This program features our ongoing roundtable discussion about trends and advances in library technology by a panel of LITA technology experts. The panelists will describe changes and advances in technology that they see having an impact on the library world, and suggest what libraries might do to take advantage of these trends. This year's panelists line up is:

Maurice Coleman, Session Moderator, Technical Trainer, Harford County Public Library, @baldgeekinmd
Blake Carver, Systems Administrator, LYRASIS, @blakesterz
Lauren Comito, Job and Business Academy Manager, Queens Library, @librariancraftr
Laura Costello, Head of Research & Emerging Technologies, Stony Brook University, @lacreads
Carolyn Coulter, Director, PrairieCat Library Consortium, Reaching Across Illinois Library System (RAILS), @ccoulter
Nick Grove, Digital Services Librarian, Meridian Library District – unBound, @nickgrove15

More information on Top Tech Trends go to: http://ala.org/lita/ttt

LITA Awards Presentation & LITA President's Program

3:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Orange County Convention Center, Room W109B

Toward an Ethic of Social Justice in Information
Speaker: Dr. Safiya Noble

The landscape of information is rapidly shifting as new imperatives and demands push to the fore increasing investment in digital technologies, despite the consequences of increased surveillance and lack of privacy, which are changing our information engagements. Increasingly, critical information scholars are demonstrating how digital technology and its narratives are shaped by and infused with values that are not impartial, disembodied, or lacking positionality. Technologies consist of a set of social practices, situated within the dynamics of race, gender, class, and control. In this talk, Safiya Umoja Noble, Assistant Professor in the Department of Information Studies at UCLA, will discuss the importance of the library community to offer models of intervention through research, practice, and teaching. Her research examines the linkages to power struggles over representation on the web and in the digital library, and the consequences of marginalization and misrepresentation in commercial information platforms like Google search, particularly for communities living under increasing surveillance and precarity.

This talk is co-sponsored by ALA’s Office for Diversity, Literacy, and Outreach Services and the Black Caucus of the American Library Association.

Dr. Noble is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Information Studies in the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at UCLA. She conducts research in socio-cultural informatics; including feminist, historical and political-economic perspectives on computing platforms and software in the public interest. Her research is at the intersection of culture and technology in the design and use of applications on the Internet.

Her research and scholarly interests include:

Search engine ethics
Socio-cultural, economic and ethical implications of information in society
Race, gender and sexuality in information communication technologies
Digital technology and Internet policy development
Privacy and surveillance
Information and/as control
Gaming, women and race
Critical information studies
Social Informatics, Community Informatics and Development Informatics
Human Computer Interaction for multicultural users

LITA Happy Hour, 5:30 pm - 8:00 pm

Location: Rosen Centre Hotel, Sam & Bubbe’s Lobby Bar
9840 International Drive, Orlando, Florida 32819, (407) 996-9840
http://www.rosencentre.com/dining-and-recreation/sam-and-bubbes/

LITA Celebrating 50 Years

This year marks a special LITA Happy Hour as we kick off the celebration of LITA's 50th anniversary. Make sure you join the LITA Membership Development Committee and LITA members from around the country for networking, good cheer, and great fun! Expect lively conversation and excellent drinks; cash bar. Help us cheer for 50 years of library technology.

Cancelled Preconferences

[Cancelled] Digital Privacy and Security: Keeping You And Your Library Safe and Secure In A Post-Snowden World (LIT1)

Orange County Convention Center, Room W105
Presenters: Blake Carver, LYRASIS and Jessamyn West, Library Technologist at Open Library

Learn strategies on how to make you, your librarians and your patrons more secure & private in a world of ubiquitous digital surveillance and criminal hacking. We'll teach tools that keep your data safe inside of the library and out -- how to secure your library network environment, website, and public PCs, as well as tools and tips you can teach to patrons in computer classes and one-on-one tech sessions. We’ll tackle security myths, passwords, tracking, malware, and more, covering a range of tools from basic to advanced, making this session ideal for any library staff.

[Cancelled] Islandora for Managers: Open Source Digital Repository Training (LIT2)

Orange County Convention Center, Room W106
Presenters: Erin Tripp, Business Development Manager at discoverygarden inc. and Stephen Perkins, Managing Member of Infoset Digital Publishing

The Islandora for Managers workshop will empower participants to manage digital content in an open source, standards-based, and interoperable repository framework. Islandora combines Drupal and Fedora Commons software together with additional open source applications. The framework delivers easy-to-configure tools to expose and preserve all types of digital content. The Islandora for Managers workshop will provide an overview of the Islandora software and open source community. It will also feature an interactive 'how to' guide for ingesting various types of content, setting permissions, metadata management, configuring discovery, managing embargoes and much more. Participants can choose to follow along using a virtual machine or an online Islandora sandbox.