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Top Technology Trends
I am on the LITA Top Technology Trends Committee this year and the main purpose of this group is to put on this popular event at each Midwinter and Annual ALA Conference. Top Tech Trends took place this morning with a panel of “trendsters,” who discuss current technology trends and often predict future trends. The panel this year had some familiar faces and some new ones, including our own Erik Mitchell! The other panelists were:

  • Lorcan Dempsey, Vice President and Chief Strategist, OCLC
  • Rachel Frick, Program Director, Digital Library Federation
  • Monique Sendze, Associate Director of Information Technology, Douglas County Libraries, Colorado
  • Jeffrey Trzeciak, University Librarian, McMaster University

This year each panelist presented two trends and then the audience interacted with questions and comments. Being such a techie group, the committee did a live feed of the session (which was watched by about 40 viewers and recorded it for later viewing. My job this morning was to monitor the twitter feed in case questions were posed for the panelists. My “mopup” assignment is to view the recorded session and work up a list of URL’s and websites cited by the panelists to share over the LITA site.

Immediately following the conclusion of the event, the committee met to start planning for the ALA Annual event, in New Orleans in June. I got an assignment I can sink my teeth into: find a restaurant for the committee and panelist to meet and get acquainted the night prior to the session. Having visited New Orleans three times now, and having never eaten in the same place twice, it will be a fun assignment!

Right now, I am writing from the LITA emerging technologies interest group meeting. I was hoping for some new and exciting ideas, but the talk is centered around technologies that we are already working with: QR Codes, augmented reality, location based services, Evernote, Dropbox, etc. It was nice to see folks get introduced to these handy technologies, but, for me, the real new tech ideas came in this morning’s Top Tech Trends session.