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ALA/LITA

Heads of Library Technology (HoLT) Interest Group

ALA Annual Conference - Chicago, Illinois

Sunday, July 12th 2009; 08:00 AM – 10:00 AM

Palmer House Dearborn 3 / Meeting Minutes

1.     Introductions and Announcements

a.     Purpose of HoLT - The Heads of Library Technology Interest Group (HoLT) provides a forum and support network for people with administrative responsibility for computing and technology in a library setting. HoLT provides timely programming for the ALA Annual Conference.

b.     Introduce Officers – present and past

                                                              i.      The current Chair – Richard Wayne led the meeting. Vice-Chair Mark Stoffan becomes the Chair at the end of Annual Conference

c.      Our program – ‘Content Management Systems in Libraries: Opportunities and Lessons Learned.’ Monday @ 01:30 PM in McCormick Place South S105a-d

d.     Let’s go around the room. Attendees are as follows:

                                                              i.      Jennifer Millikan, Kirkwood Public Library

                                                            ii.      Susan Allen, Worthington Public Library

                                                          iii.      Allen Bettig, Glenview Public Library

                                                         iv.      Julian Clark, Howard County Library

                                                           v.      Marc Truitt, University of Alberta Libraries

                                                         vi.      Kevin Herrera, University of Mississippi

                                                       vii.      Mark Stoffan, Florida State University

                                                     viii.      Ed Sanchez, Marquette University

                                                          ix.      Eli Neiburger, Ann Arbor District Library

                                                            x.      Mary Ann Van Cura, Minnesota State Library Services

                                                          xi.      Al Cornish, Washington State University Libraries

                                                        xii.      Nackil Sung, Eastern Illinois University

                                                      xiii.      Stu Baker, Northwestern University

                                                     xiv.      Richard Wayne, UT Southwestern Medical Center Library

e.     Email list - http://lists.ala.org/wws/info/lita-holt

f.       Website - http://www.lita.org/ala/mgrps/divs/lita/litamembership/litaigs/headsoflibtech/headslibrary.cfm

2.     LITA & HoLT Business

a.     Election for next year’s Vice-Chair position

                                                              i.      Ed Sanchez from Marquette University told the group about his background and interests and was unanimously elected Vice-Chair

b.     Future program ideas – 2010 Midwinter in Boston, Annual in D.C.

                                                              i.      This discussion naturally evolved into our HoLTalk discussion as we evaluated various ideas.

                                                            ii.      The idea selected for Annual Conference 2010 was System Virtualization in Libraries. Some related concepts are green technology and cost savings. Mark Stoffan and Ed Sanchez will pursue this program with the LITA Program Committee

3.     HoLTalk

a.     Potential topics and discussion

                                                              i.      The integration of disparate library system silos

                                                            ii.      The concept of harvesting fits in with the silo integration puzzle. One commercial tool in this area is III’s Encore

                                                          iii.      ‘Hosted services as savior or slippery slope’ was suggested as a topic. This might include content management systems (CMS), tools, cloud computing, security issues, open source email tools such as Zimbra

                                                         iv.      We could take our past work with technology competencies to the next level. Perhaps how to integrate online tutorials into a self-serve learning environment

                                                           v.      The next idea was somewhat similar to harvesting. It looked at non-ILS (integrated library system) centric search-ability and findability

                                                         vi.      System virtualization in libraries and some related topics was suggested. This led to quite a bit of discussion. We might present about the benefits of virtualization and its feasibility for even very small libraries. Perhaps hosted virtualization environments. Would people be interested in this topic in this economy since virtualization has a price tag? Then again, virtualization is so useful for setting up testing and development environments. If virtualized environments become owned by the IT organization outside the library, then the quality of systems may deteriorate. This topic is at a pretty high ‘geek-speak’ level. However, it would present a great learning opportunity for potential attendees. We should not shy away from HoLT’s essence in order to gain attendance at sessions. That essence is to present high level topics of high impact

                                                       vii.      Perhaps we could connect the ideas of virtualization and hosted services?

                                                     viii.      What about a program on the ‘Broadband Stimulus Initiative?’ This is a good topic, but it will probably have played out by next annual conference

                                                          ix.      How about a program on the tug of war between information security, functionality, and privacy?

                                                            x.      Green computing is an important concept. The idea of sharing spare CPU cycles such as done by the SETI system

                                                          xi.      Infrastructure monitoring as done by a program like Nagio may be an interesting topic

b.     Chosen topic discussion – After we chose the virtualization topic, some discussion continued on further suggestions for the presentation at Annual 2010

                                                              i.      Perhaps address hosted virtualization systems

                                                            ii.      Virtualization presents a valuable test or play area

                                                          iii.      The presenters might be selected based upon their library size (e.g., small, medium, large) versus library type (e.g., public, academic, special, school)

                                                         iv.      The program idea might be approached as a separate infrastructure or part of a larger infrastructure issue

                                                           v.      Check with UCSD and Skokie Public on ideas related to this topic

c.      Other topics – we have a very few minutes remaining to discuss some miscellaneous topics that had been mentioned

                                                              i.      What does the broadband initiative mean for public library broadband initiatives in this tough economic environment? Let’s be careful though of mixing infrastructure building with commercial interests. We may lose sustainability when vendors become involved. That is why people in Europe have 50 Mbps to their homes – because the infrastructure is owned by the municipality