Things I Learned at the LITA Forum
(Caveat lector: I chose not to blog any sessions at LITA, mostly because I knew I couldn't summon the level of concentration needed to do a good con-grunt. There are lots of good entries on the LITA Forum at the LITA blog, if you want the full flavor of the conference.)
Opening Session: Googlezon VI: Return of the Librarian
I'll provide a quote from the beginning of Roy Tennant's talk that may have some context later on: "Like some sort of grade B movie, we've stood idly by while Googlezon has kidnapped our patrons and ravaged our collection and building budgets. Are we going to let them get away with it? Of course not! Come hear about how librarians can still vanquish Googlezon and win back our rightful place as the guardians of the world's knowledge and all that is good."
Presidential End-of-Term Web Harvesting: Apparently, whitehouse.gov has a robots.txt file approximately 2400 lines long. Go see for yourself. Also, Heritrix rocks, but I sorta knew that already.
Predominant thought of the day: Where is Walt?
Sponsor showcase: Didn't talk to any of the sponsors. I'm not employed as a library worker and just didn't have anything to say. Did I imagine things, or did Sirsi/Dynix has 2 tables?
On the way out (Day 1): As I signed up for the blogger cocktail hour, someone scanning the Dine Around board saw the sheet and asked, so what's the dealio with blogs anyway? (note, no quotes ... the question was asked much more professionally) We talked a bit about blogging and RSS feeds. It turns out that the person works for a company specializes in audio/video conversion & preservation. He said that their business has gone largely from preservation in various physical formats (as an end goal or primary motivator for customers) to digitization. Huh.
Keynote session - danah boyd: At the very least, this session is proof that even if you wear a fuzzy hat that looks like an accessory from a cosplay convention, it doesn't mean that librarians won't take you seriously. Is very disturbed by (maybe even contemptuous of) librarians' traditional gatekeeper rols and was upset by Roy Tennant's 'Google-bashing' keynote. Unfortunately, I had to leave (law school stuff) before she started talking about blogging and other new information channels. I'm really sorry I missed this:
It wasn't so long ago that librarians were seen as pirates. How dare you let people take books for free? And make copies!?!? You are all a bunch of thieves!...
We all run by different rules but we all have the same goals in mind. My only request is that you don your eye-patch, practice your arrrr's and help protect the distribution of information in all its forms.
And to think that I already own a Jolly Roger. Yes, I've been thinking about the librarian/pirate dichotomy for a while now. Maybe I should get a furry hat AND an eyepatch ...
Gorman keynote: I MISSED GORMAN! ARRGGGHHH! (Darned law school stuff). The few people I asked about his speech didn't really have a lot to say -- no flying chairs, no wild, intemperate statements or rebuttals during the Q&A.
Lunch: Tasty, but I've seen more vegetarian options at a BBQ shack. The bread, the mushroom soup and the corn had no meat; everything else did, including both salads (Thai Beef & shrimp Louie) and both pastas (Italian sausage lasagna & farfelle with chicken). Strange.
I talked with danah boyd after lunch. Since she started her keynote with acknowledging that she was scarred by librarians as a youth, I told her my Mapplethorpe story. Unfortunately, danah seems to be pretty library-phobic: getting through an undergrad degree with only a couple of social visits to the library is actually feasible, if disappointing; but being a doctoral student at one of the best research institutions in the country and having never gone to any of the main libraries is ... well, shocking. More strange.
The obligatory Google session (TOGS): Very well-attended. Lots of questions. I asked one, of the UMich librarian on the panel: would the library use the scans provided by Google of federal government documents to facilitate unlimited access to the Michigan public as part of its depository program. She (and it was a she!) said: YES! How cool is that ... I wasn't expecting it. Huzzah. One of the audience members just could not believe that Google doesn't have major, proprietary plans to squeeze whatever potential profits can be made from of indexing of the digitized books in the Google Print program.
Post-TOGS: a. I found a very pretty, semi-expensive PDA (Palm Tungsten C, to be exact). I turned it in. I'd really like a really pretty, semi-expensive PDA at some point. Note to self: get crackin' on those scholarship apps.
b. I sorta recognized the Google Rep (Ben Burrell), but I couldn't place him and I knew he wasn't the rep at the big LITA panel in Chicago with Google & the G5. I left the room, but he ran after me! He recognized me and knew exactly where we'd met before: in the exhibit hall in Chicago ... we bought rolling luggage from the same vendor and he remembered that I was at the Internet Archive. That was sssoooooo sweet of him.
Policy Geekery (OITP Update): Rick Weingarten and Carrie Lowe were great. Both are really concerned about CALEA. And it appears that E-Rate is steadily losing support in Congress. I asked Carrie if this could be connected to perceptions that the digital divide is either solved or as good as it could possibly get. She said that she thought that such perceptions were a factor.
Blogger cocktail hour: I missed it completely. But I took home lots of leftover appetizers from the SJSU SLIS reception.
Poster session: I usually don't go to poster sessions. But this was a no-conflict session and in the main portion of the conference area, so I wandered. The only person I talked with in any depth was Diane Ward, presenting on RFID and libraries: I asked about labor concerns over RFID and issues over how RFID can/should be used with media (CD & DVD disks, in particular). Diane believes that RFID should free up library shelvers and other circulation staff to become better trained in higher-level and more interesting library tasks. And, there is a vendor, , that specializes in RFID tags that can be applied directly to CDs, DVDs and other media.
Closing session: David Levy - Information and the Quality of Life: It was a thoughtful, soothing, measured talk. Given how the talk was about the pressures and costs of information overload, trying to furiously take notes on it seemed to be antithetical to the point. However, I will always remember this talk, and not just because I taped it for personal use: it was the first time I've heard a Carlin word from an ALA speaker at the dias. In response to one of the questions, he mentioned that he had heard that a school district (perhaps in Tacoma, WA) was eliminating recess because there was just no time, and the superintendent justified it as a way to prepare kids for their future roles in the global economy. As most of the audience murmured disquietingly, Mr. Levy added his own commentary: 'If this is true, then we are f*****' (because this is a PG-13 blog). Many gasped, succumbed to nervous laughter and then applauded his forthrightness.
Overall: I walked in on Friday wondering why I had paid so much out of my own pocket for an IT conference for librarians, given that I'm not a systems librarian, a digital librarian, or, any type of librarian for the foreseeable future. I walked out Sunday musing over all of the things I'd learned and grateful for all of the encounters I experienced. It was a good conference and it made me happy to be a LITA member.
Comments
I'm glad you took these notes. I'm also very glad danah came and spoke. I'm sorry that she's a teacher who doesn't teach respect for the library. I think, though, from her blog post after that she gets it and perhaps the empire builders like tennant and gorman don't.
Posted by: Christina Pikas | October 6, 2005 06:26 PM
To be accurate, the "quote" from the beginning of my presentation is really just the hyperbolic description of the program that was aimed simply to get butts in chairs. It hardly represents the talk itself in any substantial way, and unfortunately danah boyd used only that one tiny paragraphy upon which to skewer me, apparently. Anyone who writes off what I said as simple "Google bashing" clearly wasn't there. Most of what I did was bash libraries, in various ways, and then tried to identify things I think we should be doing (largely stealing what works from Google and others) to build more effective services than we ever have before.
And as for the comment that lumps Michael Gorman and I in the same category, I find that...uh...amusing in the extreme, as would those who know me.
Posted by: Roy Tennant | October 8, 2005 11:56 AM
Roy - what i tried to convey was that to an outsider, that program description was very alienating. You may have been trying to get librarians in their seats, but you also made most of the industry folks that i talked with look at the conference and automatically dismiss it. I don't know you at all, but that description does make you look aligned with Gorman. Your intentions might be good, but the impression to an outsider is really anti-tech. I actually removed a huge chunk of my critique of the Googlezon stuff from my talk after talking with Karen and Zoe - they vouched that you were a good one and that i would like you. This is why i tried to emphasize that it was about the abstract not you.
Posted by: zephoria | October 8, 2005 02:09 PM