LITA

Today I joined the Library and Information Technology Association (lita.org), a division of ALA that concentrates, appropriately enough, on the use of information technology in libraries. In the past it concentrated on things like integrated library systems and retrospective conversion, but today it is mostly concerned with the use of the Internet and Web in libraries, a topic I am very interested in myself. It also covers Library education and technical issues such as authority control and Machine-Readable Bibliographic Information (MARBI).

My favorite committee is the Top Technology Trends Committee, which tracks and educates about emerging trends in library technology. They have a good webpage compiling information, available to the public, about new developments in IT. Check out their pages on blogging and folksonomies, for example.

Unfortunately, I sort of missed the LITA conference this year. It takes place before and during ALA Annual, which I did attend this year as it was in New Orleans, but at that time I was not aware of LITA and so did not seek out any of its events. I may have stumbled across some, but frankly I don't remember -- so much stuff goes on at Annual it is hard to keep it straight. A very similar experience to the World Science Fiction Convention, which I attended in 2000. Fun but exhausting.