LITA and Top Tech Trends, Part 2: Digital Outreacha Model for ALA?

Josh Hadro -- Library Journal, 01/27/2009

• Live blogging and streaming video enables real-time access
• Comments and participation solicited via Twitter and FriendFeed
• A model for broader access to other LITA and ALA programs?

Besides the themes identified by the panelists of the 2009 American Library Association (ALA) Midwinter LITA Top Tech Trends meeting (see "LITA and Top Tech Trends, Part 1: Panel Ranges Far and Wide Over Library Tech Issues"), the added effort made to extend the panel to as many LITA members as possible marked a trend in itself. Though not the first time remote participation has been a focus (see recent coverage of ALA's Task Force on Electronic Member Participation), the social efforts may be a model for further ALA conferences and meetings.

It was apparent from the opening remarks of Maurice York, panel moderator and North Carolina State University head of information technology, that this meeting would be different from previous efforts. He emphasized that people in the audience and at home could follow the meeting and the commentary on "devices of all kinds," rather just on a laptop. Of course, there were dozens of laptop users in the room, and more than 20 participants following the live stream of the session on Ustream and via the live blog.

The successful broadcast was due in large part to the efforts of BIGWIG advocates Jason Griffey, who set up much of the technology that linked all of the outlets together, and Cindi Trainor, who provided the live blog with photos and commentary. (BIGWIG is LITA's blogging and social software-focused arm, with Griffey currently serving as its the head.) Back-channel commentary via microblogging and social networking services like Twitter and FriendFeed also gave LITA members and others even more options to follow the panel and provide feedback.

In fact, the session further demonstrated the affinity that tech-savvy librarians have for the Twitter microblogging service. For a brief period that Sunday morning, the "#TTT09" tag used to denote Twitter comments as relating to the session broke into the ranks of the top ten terms used across Twitter.

Call for openness
The LITA Town Hall session was successfully live-blogged in much the same way the following day. At the session, and simultaneously via Twitter, Griffey called for more integration of similar efforts into LITA's wider role at ALA. Specifically, he suggested that all sessions be recorded and broadcast to open sessions and interest groups to LITA membership, and extend ALA's policy on open meetings. As David Lee King (davidleeking) said via Twitter, "LITA could be showing all of ALA how to do some of this stuff."

Given the success of these efforts, a number of LITA Town Hall participants were dismayed to hear that ALA has already contracted locations for physical Midwinter Meetings for several years. Though, of course, as Steven R. Harris (srharris19) tweeted, "face2face still has value: BEERS."