All Sessions

Discover how libraries can benefit by moving to the cloud and what role librarians can play when staff and student applications become hosted. The session discusses the implication of hosted computer applications and resources on school library programs and the role of the school librarian.

What are the advantages of moving to a "hosted" school library catalog and circulation system? How can school librarians themselve take advantage of GoogleApps and similar cloud-based productivity tools? And what roles can the school librarian play when a school adopts a program like GoogleApps for Education?

This session will introduce the key concepts underpinning the Islandora Digital Asset Management system. Participants will learn the basics of running this rich repository system and how to utilize common "solution packs" to create and theme collections in Islandora. Participants will learn how to begin modeling and curating custom data collections, and how to migrate from other repository systems, including ContentDM, DSpace and more. Textbooks and system access will be provided; participants should bring computers.

High quality metadata: billions of bibliographic records, finding aids, descriptions of digital content - is a major asset of the library community. Agreement is growing on the benefits of transforming this wealth into linked data. Much experimentation is taking place. However, production-quality tools and infrastructure for linked data are in their infancy. This pre-conference will bring together catalogers and programmers to initiate the systematic, consensus-building approach needed to make Library Linked Data reality.

Your library’s new website is powered by a high-octane content management system (Drupal, WordPress, etc.) that gives you more power than ever to communicate with your patrons. But what are you saying? How are you saying it? What kind of service are you providing online? How can you ensure that it’s just as good as in your buildings? Content strategy to the rescue! Topics will include strategy development, training & adoption, production control and governance.

This Spectrum Institute session, part of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation-funded Technology Transforms Communities project, features Richard Chabran, Adjunct Professor, School of Information Resources and Library Science, University of Arizona, Policy Advisor, California Broadband Policy Network, Member of the American Library Association Digital Content and Libraries Working Group & Matthew Rantanen, Director of Technology, Southern California Tribal Chairmen's Association, Tribal Digital Village, Chairman of the Board of Directors at Native Public Media; Native Nations Broadband Taskforce Member at the Federal Communications Commission; and Vice President of Technology at the Southern California Tribal Technologies, LLC.

Note the Spectrum Institute is open only to current Spectrum Scholars, alumni, and invited guests.

This half day preconference will discuss the use of digital media to better learn its potential applications in the library and will teach participants how to work with teens on a virtual project.

This program will outline a theoretically driven pragmatic approach to leadership by presenting leadership styles and appropriate applications to give the participants a solid cookbook approach to resolving various situational and structural issues.

Jay Johnston is Director of the Farmington Libraries, Farmington CT. His vision, knowledge of technology, coalition building skills, and belief in the importance of the public library sustain his dedication to a staff-centered, customer-focused, high-energy leadership model.

Christine Bradley is currently the director of Norwalk Public Library.

Subgroup 2 focuses on library enabled and produced content. It is a subgroup of the Digital Content and Libraries Working Group.

Changes in the economic and information landscape of higher education and technology demand that academic libraries develop new solutions to meet changing user expectations, and prepare our organizations for future directions. All academic library Associate University Librarians, Associate Deans, Assistant Directors, or equivalent ranked senior personnel who are interested in discussing organizational change are welcome to attend.

LITA Open House is a great opportunity for current and prospective members to talk with Library and Information Technology Association (LITA) leaders and learn how to make connections and become more involved in LITA activities.

The Internet was going to liberate us, but in truth it has not. For every story about the web’s empowering role in events such as the Arab Spring, there are many more about the quiet corrosion of civil liberties by companies and governments using the same digital technologies we have come to depend upon.

Sudden changes in Facebook’s features and privacy settings have exposed identities of protestors to police in Egypt and Iran. Apple removes politically controversial apps at the behest of governments as well as for its own commercial reasons. Dozens of Western companies sell surveillance technology to dictatorships around the world. Google struggles with censorship demands from governments in a range of countries—many of them democracies—as well as mounting public concern over the vast quantities of information it collects about its users.

In Consent of the Networked, journalist and Internet policy specialist Rebecca MacKinnon argues that it is time to fight for our rights before they are sold, legislated, programmed, and engineered away. Every day, the corporate sovereigns of cyberspace make decisions that affect our physical freedom— but without our consent. Yet the traditional solution to unaccountable corporate behavior—government regulation— cannot stop the abuse of digital power on its own, and sometimes even contributes to it.

A clarion call to action, Consent of the Networked shows that it is time to stop arguing over whether the Internet empowers people, and address the urgent question of how technology should be governed to support the rights and liberties of users around the world.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Rebecca MacKinnon works on global Internet policy as a Schwartz Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation. She is co-founder of Global Voices, a citizen media network, and a former fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society. She is on the board of the Committee to Protect Journalists and worked for twelve years as a journalist in Asia, including as CNN’s Bureau Chief in Tokyo and Beijing.

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