• ALA Conference 2009: Twitter Confidential—@ALAsecrets Interview – 7/21/2009 – Library Journal
  (tags: conference ala)
• OSA – Open Source for America
  iBiblio is one of the founding members, from the press release: “Today, a broad cross-section of more than 70 companies, academic institutions, communities, related groups and individuals joined together to announce the formation of Open Source for America, an organization that will serve as a unified voice for the promotion of open source software in the U.S. Federal Government arena. To register or learn more about the coalition, visit www.opensourceforamerica.org.”
  (tags: opensource politics ibiblio)

• Help, I need somebody to tag
  This student needs help conducting research on his Master’s Thesis on “Collaborative Indexing Systems”, i.e. tagging. Please take his 15 minute tagging “survey” if you get a chance. “Tobias Kowatsch, Student of Computer Science in Media at Hochschule Fu
  (tags: folksonomy research tagging thesis survey experiment TobiasKowatsch Folksonomies)
• Pattern Recognition » Why ALA will never learn
  BIGWIG got in trouble with LITA for not using enough LITA branding. However, I am joining LITA because of BIGWIG.
  (tags: lita bigwig ala ala2007)
• Library Web Chic » Blog Archive » Exhausted but gratified
  Karen Coombs’ response to Jason’s post and the LITA Letter. “But the truth is that the only way the system changes is if people participate and try to change it.”
  (tags: ala lita bigwig ala2007)
• Free Range Librarian » Blog Archive » Educating LITA
  A deeper discussion of ALA committees resulting.
  (tags: ala lita bigwig)
• del.icio.us usability – a photoset on Flickr
  A peak at Del.icio.us usability testing. Posted on Flickr of course.
  (tags: del.icio.us delicious usability photos)

Below is my tentative schedule for ALA. I am mostly going to be in town on Sat. and Sun. Please shoot me an e-mail if you want and try to meet up. Before checking out my schedule be sure and check out the petition to start a Member Initiatives Group for Virtual Communities and Libraries. There is a petition to print and sign that needs to be handed in at the conference.

• Friday, June 22 8:00 or 9:00pm, Arrive in D.C.
  - I am going to try and spend the evening preparing for my meetings.

• Saturday, June 23 8:00am – 10:00pm, Presidential Task Force on Library Education at Renaissance Washington, Room 2.
  - I am really excited about this one. This is the first meeting of a Task Force established by Leslie Burger to explore the future of library education. There are a bunch of folks on this Task Force that I really admire. I will primarily be representing recent graduates of in-person schools. There is no site up for this yet, but I am going to propose that we set up a wiki or something.

• Saturday, June 23 10:30am -12:00pm, Membership Committee at Renaissance, Room 2.

• Saturday, June 23 5:30pm-8:00pm, LITA Happy Hour at Capitol City Brewing Company (Capitol Hill location, 2 Massachusetts Ave, NE)
  - P.S. starting at 6:30 there is going to be a gathering of LISHost people as well.

• Saturday, June 23 11:00 pm – 2:00 am, After Hours at Annual at R.F.D. Washington (between H and I on 7th) from the Facebook event:

Come out after hours on Saturday of ALA Annual in DC for an informal get together of ALA Facebook Group members at R.F.D. Washington – http://www.lovethebeer.com/rfd.html This is a Bar. Melanie from the ALA Washington Office says of RFD: “Huge bar, great beers on tap. Good place for big crowds, cheap and not fancy. Easy to find, no dress code and not pricey. ” Just like us. Mostly. No need to RSVP. And it’s not an offical ALA event. Hope to see you there.

• Sunday, June 24 from 10:30am-12:00pm, RUSA -MARS Chair’s Program – Harnessing the Hive at Washington Convention Center room: Room 144 A-C OR Sunday, June 24, 2007, 10:30am-11:30am, Auditorium Speaker Series: Featuring Anthony Romero (President of the ACLU) at Washington Convention Center Ballroom C

• Sunday, June 24 2:30pm-4:00pm, Meeting

• Sunday, June 24 4:00pm – 5:30pm, Membership Committee, at Renaissance, Room 5

• Sunday, June 24 5:45pm – 8:00pm, Blog Salon at Grand Hyatt Hotel, Congressional Suite OR Sunday, June 24 5:30pm – 7:30pm, UNC SILS Alumni Reception at the Colonial Room of the Renaissance Mayflower Hotel.
  - Unfortunately I have a dinner meeting at 7, so I will only make it to part of one of these. Usually they are both great events.

• Sunday, June 24 7:00pm – ?, Dinner Meeting

• Sunday, June 24 7:30pm to 11:30pm – NMRT Social at HYATT Independence A
  - I have been meaning to make it to one of these for quite a while now. I am going to make a concerted effort this time.

Some other cool stuff I have my eye on:

Michael Stephen’s is involved in these sessions: http://tametheweb.com/upcoming_presentations/

John Blyberg’s Schedule: http://www.blyberg.net/2007/06/04/ala-annual-schedule/

and his suggestion for Leslie Burger’s (very cool) Presidential Transformation Track: http://www.blyberg.net/2007/06/06/be-transformed-ala-07/

Jenny Levine lists the explicitly 2.0 sessions that are going on.

http://sils.unc.edu/news/releases/2005/12_studentenvent.htm

Leslie blogged about her visit in a post on Talking to Strangers on ALA Buses and put up a picture as well. Michael Stephens then mentioned her post and then Karen Schneider mentioned it on her blog. Michael was just using it as an example of her posts, but we were still glad that he chose the one about our event.

Thank you very much to the Graduate and Professional Student Federation for their generous sponsorship of this event. Interestingly, their site is a Wiki. Maybe it was good luck that Jimmy Wales was visiting when they made their decision. Thank you also to all the other folks who helped in this process.

We have also gotten confirmation on when her flight will be arriving which makes it possible to continue with planning the details of her visit. It looks like she will be arriving in time to have the brown bag lunch that we hoped to have for students that can’t make the talk.

One of the places we hope to show her while she is here is the scroll that Jack Kerouac typed On the Road on. The scroll will be on display as part of a display at the Melba Remig Saltarelli Exhibit Room on the third floor of Wilson Library until mid-December. The press release for the event can be read here.

For the past few weeks I have been working with my colleague Stefanie to organize a visit by Leslie Burger. Event planning is not easy. Everything is coming along relatively smoothly I guess. Unless something major changes, Leslie will be speaking at 5:30pm on Monday November 7 in Manning 209. A reception will follow. We are still working out the rest of the details. I will post when I know more.