LITA Blog

For those of you heading to Dallas in a couple of weeks, remember LITA Happy Hour as you put together your conference schedule.

Here’s your chance to catch-up with your LITA friends, and maybe make some new ones. If you’re new to LITA, the Happy Hour is a great opportunity to get to know other members in a relaxed atmosphere. The LITA Membership Committee hopes to see you there!

LITA Happy Hour is immediately followed by the Emerging Leaders Soiree at the same location – these two crowds are so attuned it would be a shame to miss either one!

These workshops will be held Friday, January 20, 2012 as part of the ALA Midwinter Meeting in Dallas, TX.

Mark Phillips of University of North Texas Libraries is presenting Digital Curation at the Command Line. Curation of digital content for long-term preservation seems like an impossible challenge, but many core tools for this work are available at the Linux command line. This workshop will provide a hands-on review of basic filesystem structure and navigation, permissions and ownership, and other tools for bit-level preservation. Attendees should have basic computing knowledge and some experience with Linux. Participants will need to bring a laptop; Ubuntu Live USBs will be distributed in the session.

Nina McHale of Arapahoe Library District, CO and Rachel Vacek of University of Houston will present Getting Started with Drupal. This workshop will provide a thorough introduction to the Drupal content management system. Presenter will guide attendees as they create Drupal sites in a sandbox environment, covering the basics of content creation, themes, modules, and user management. Demonstrations of innovative Drupal sites, including library sites, library intranets, and an electronic journal will be provided. Previous web experience is helpful, but not required. Participants should plan to bring a laptop.

• More information on these workshops and other LITA events at Midwinter can be found at the LITA web site.

Visit the ALA Midwinter Meeting registration page to register for these events. Please note: you do not have to register for the ALA Midwinter Meeting in order to attend these workshops. You may register for the workshop only or add a workshop to your existing Midwinter registration by calling ALA Registration at 1 (800) 974-3084 or through the online registration form in the “Your Events” section. Online Registration for workshops is available through January 16 or you may register onsite in Dallas.

Want to know what’s happening with LITA in Dallas? Here’s a quick gCal with the dates, times, and locations.

The LITA Board of Directors is pleased to congratulate Jodie Gambill and Tasha Keagan on being selected to participate in the ALA 2012 Emerging Leaders Program and on being selected for LITA sponsorship. LITA sponsorship includes a $1,000 stipend to help offset the costs of attending the 2012 Midwinter Meeting and the 2012 Annual Conference. In addition, Jodie and Tasha will each work on LITA projects and be mentored by the LITA leadership.

Jodie is currently a systems librarian at Vanderbilt University. Tasha is currently a library assistant IV at the University of California.

The LITA Board wishes to ensure that its’ Emerging Leaders have meaningful leadership experiences within LITA, therefore Jodie and Tasha will work closely with the LITA President-elect.

The ALA Emerging Leaders Program enables newer librarians from across the country to participate in problem-solving workgroups, network with peers, gain an inside look into ALA structure, and have an opportunity to serve the profession in a leadership capacity. Each participant is expected to provide one year of service to ALA or one of its units.

LITA had a number of excellent applicants and congratulates these additional LITA members on being accepted into the ALA Emerging Leaders Program as well: Anita Dryden, Erica Findley, Shell McHugh, Willie Miller, Lilly Ramin, Heather Rayl, Coral Sheldon-Hess, Andrew Sherman, and Carli Spina. LITA has a very bright future with such bright, rising stars.