President’s Message Cindi Trainor INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES AND LIBRARIES | DECEMBER 2013 1 Hi, LITAns! Forum 2013 I'm excited that 2014 is almost here. Last month saw a very successful Forum in Louisville, in my home state of Kentucky. There were 243 people in attendance, and about half of those were first- time attendees. It's also typical of our yearly conference that there are a large number of attendees from the surrounding area; this is one of the reasons that it travels around the country. Louisville's Forum was the last of a few in the "middle" of the country--these included St. Louis, Atlanta, and Columbus. Next year, Forum will move back out west, to Albuquerque, NM. The theme for next year's conference will be "Transformation: from Node to Network." See the LITA blog (http://litablog.org/2013/11/call-for-proposals-2014-lita-forum/) for the call for proposals for concurrent sessions, poster sessions, and pre-conference workshops. Goals of the Organization At the Board meeting in the fall, we took a stab at updating LITA's major goal areas. The Strategic Plan had not been updated since 2010, so we felt it was time to update the goal areas, at least for the short term. The goals that we agreed upon will carry us through Annual Conference 2015 and will give us time to mount a more complete planning process in the meantime. They are: • Collaboration & Networking: Foster collaboration and encourage networking among our members and beyond so the full potential of technologies in libraries can be realized. • Education & Sharing of Expertise: Offer education, publications, and events to inspire and enable members to improve technology integration within their libraries. • Advocacy: Advocate for meaningful legislation, policies, and standards that positively impact on the current and future capabilities of libraries that promote equitable access to information and technology. • Infrastructure: Improve LITA’s organizational capacity to serve, educate, and create community for its members. Midwinter Activities In other governance news, the Board will have an online meeting in January 2014, prior to Cindi Trainor (cindiann@gmail.com) is LITA President 2013-14 and Community Specialist & Trainer for Springshare, LLC. http://litablog.org/2013/11/call-for-proposals-2014-lita-forum/ mailto:cindiann@gmail.com PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE | TRAINOR 2 Midwinter conference. Our one-hour meeting will be spent asking and answering questions of those who typically submit written reports for Board meetings: the Vice-President, the President, and the Executive Director. As always, look to ALA Connect for these documents, which are posted publicly. We welcome your comments, as well as your attendance at any of our open meetings. Our Midwinter meeting schedule is: • the week of January 13 - Online meeting, time and date TBA • Saturday, January 25, 1:30 - 4:30 p.m. - PCC 107A • Monday, January 27, 1:30 - 4:30 p.m. - PCC 115A As always, Midwinter will also hold a LITA Happy Hour (Sunday, 6-8 pm, location TBA), the Top Tech Trends panel (Sunday, 10:30 a.m., PCC 204A), and our Annual membership meeting, the LITA Town Meeting (Monday 8:30 a.m., PCC 120C). We look forward to seeing you, in Philadelphia or virtually. Make sure to check the Midwinter Scheduler (http://alamw14.ala.org/scheduler) for all the details, including the forthcoming Happy Hours location. It's the best party^H^H^H^H^H networking event at Midwinter! I would be remiss if I did not mention LITA's committees and IGs and their Midwinter meetings. Many will be meeting Saturday morning at 10:30 a.m. (PCC 113ABC)--so you can table- hop if you like. Expressing interest at Midwinter is a great way to get involved. Can't make it to Philadelphia? No problem! Fill out the online form to volunteer for a committee, or check out the Connect groups of our Interest groups. Some of the IGs meet virtually before Midwinter; some committees and IGs also invite virtual participation at Midwinter itself. Join us! http://alamw14.ala.org/scheduler