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After a long and confusing telephone call with one of the conference Sheratons, I finally figured out where to head for my meeting with the LITA Program Planning Committee. My Interest Group wants to present a program at Annual 2008, and to do so we have to put something in this weekend.

Having NEVER done this, and having heard that ALA’s process is particularly daunting, we decided to meet with the PPC. Most people who go before the committee have a draft document of what they’d like to do and they get feedback. We went to learn about process, and it was really useful!

For those who might one day want to submit a program for ALA (LITA), here’s what we learned:

• All LITA programs must come through the LITA PPC (unless it’s a managed discussion)
• PPC understands the ALA programming plan, understands where there is potential overlap, and what divisions, etc, have what areas of expertise
• LITA PPC will represent a submitted program at the October tracking meeting for the desired track and and at time slot
• PPC helps Interest Groups flesh out their idea
• LITA board has final say in programming, but typically agrees with the PPC
• The final, official, no way it can work after this, deadline is the first week in July
• Changes can be made up until Midwinter

We discussed several ideas, and are planning to focus around the issue of “everyone is a distance patron” and how that impacts staffing. We’d like to pull together a panel including an administrator, distance learning librarian, and someone who isn’t working in academia but is working with these issues. We’ll submit tomorrow… hopefully this will go well!