Category: Advocacy and Information Policy

Joint Working Group on eBooks and Digital Content in Libraries – May 2020 Report


The group met 1 time this quarter.

Recent Activities

First Activity
We discussed Macmillan dropping their embargo on libraries being able to purchase ebooks in the wake of COVID-19. Chair Kelvin Watson discussed his opinion piece in Library Journal https://www.libraryjournal.com/?detailStory=addressing-econtent-issues-in-times-of-crisis
The group finds that determining what deliverables we want to present to ALA is a moving target as the world around us changes and has changed drastically since this group was formed. We have a meeting in August that will focus on the deliverables and our path forward.
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Advocacy and Information Policy

What will your group be working on for the next three months?
Finalizing the form of what our deliverables will be to ALA.

Submitted by John Klima on 08/04/2020

Diversity and Inclusion Committee – December 2020 Report


The group met 2-3 times this quarter.

Recent Activities

First Activity
Buddy Program emailing has been passed on to another member for facilitation. We currently do not have any volunteers yet but we will try to send another call.
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Member Engagement

Second Activity
Collaboration with LITA Research and Assessment Committee re job descriptions. We have a document in progress that will lead to some slide re: good job descriptions and a checklist for writing inclusive announcements.
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Advocacy and Information Policy, Education and Professional Development

Third Activity
Standardizing LITA Calls for Proposal. Indefinite due date. We have another shared document with notes, examples of past calls for proposal and criteria for selection. We will produce a checklist.
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Education and Professional Development

What will your group be working on for the next three months?
The standardizing for calls for proposal. Emerging plans for the combined LLAMA, ALCTS, LITA division. Bystander training.

Submitted by Jharina Pascual on 01/13/2020

Joint Working Group on eBooks and Digital Content in Libraries – December 2019 Report


The group met 1 time this quarter.

Recent Activities

First Activity
We held a virtual meeting (the group's initial meeting) in November so that we could introduce ourselves, meet the group's chairs, and discuss what the focus of the working group would be. The group decided our focus would be to address Macmillian's decision to restrict new ebook sales to libraries.
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Advocacy and Information Policy

What will your group be working on for the next three months?
The group will meet in person at ALA Midwinter in Philadelphia this January. At that time, specific duties will be given to group members in preparation for our next meeting.

Submitted by John Klima on 12/31/2019

Diversity and Inclusion Committee – September 2019 Report


The group met 1 time this quarter.

Recent Activities

First Activity
Submit a proposal for ALA Annual 2020.
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Advocacy and Information Policy

Second Activity
Assign new facilitator for the LITA Conference Buddy Program.
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Organizational Stability and Sustainability

Third Activity
Introduce new members and share documentation.
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Organizational Stability and Sustainability

What will your group be working on for the next three months?
We will be working on the joint proposal with the Assessment and Research Committee regarding LITA job descriptions. Also, if our ALA Annual proposal is accepted, we will send out the call for presentations.

Submitted by Jharina Pascual on 10/01/2019

Membership Development Committee – May 2019 Report


The group met 2-3 times this quarter.

Recent Activities

First Activity
ALAAC19 Conference Kickoff – Recorded webinar featuring several folks organizing events at Annual this year.
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Education and Professional Development, Member Engagement

Second Activity
March 29 LITAchat – 2 featured LITA members and their projects complete with LITA Blog features thanks to CAM and CAM LITA blog folks.

Twitter stats from CAM on event: “Hey Robert, the analytics look pretty good from March’s LITAchat. We had 14,920 impressions that day, by far more than the rest of the month. Also, one of the tweet’s from the chat was the third most engaged with LITA tweet that month”
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Education and Professional Development, Member Engagement, Organizational Stability and Sustainability

Third Activity
May 31 LITAchat – 2 featured LITA members and their projects complete with LITA Blog features thanks to CAM and CAM LITA blog folks.
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Advocacy and Information Policy, Education and Professional Development, Member Engagement

Fourth Activity
ALAAC19 Happy Hour planning – Have contacted a dozen venues to date and pricing for space and minimum expenses/catering requirements are on average 5-10 times our event budget ($1,000 for year or $500 for AC and MW each). Recommend the Happy Hour budget be updated annually to reflect cities in which Annual and Midwinter take place. For example, New Orleans, Seattle, and Denver venues in general were much more accommodating to LITA's preferred Happy Hour format while Chicago, D.C., and to some extent Atlanta venues in our searches seemed to only accommodate more formal reservations for large groups with larger minimums or fees up front.
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Member Engagement

Fifth Activity
MDC Brainstorm document:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/17UW6Ux34shDkfOL4SY4KpSkSD7CKnRmJou3YEWqr6d8/edit

Still a WIP, but there seems to be a lot of potential in virtual personalized engagement strategies for 1st year members and regional and student engagement activities.
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Member Engagement, Organizational Stability and Sustainability

What will your group be working on for the next three months?
Happy Hour for ALAAC over the next few weeks, and continue work on brainstorming document. I suspect this document will serve as a good introduction to the committee for new MDC members.

Additional comments or concerns:
It's been a good and busy 3 years on the committee for me, very different from what I expected, but I'm grateful for the opportunity and for what i've learned.

Submitted by Robert Wilson on 05/30/2019

LITA / ALCTS Metadata Standards Committee – May 2019 Report


The group met 2-3 times this quarter.

Recent Activities

First Activity
Continued work on the Assessment for Fields in Metadata Standards project. The committee has formed a subgroup representing both ALCTS and LITA members to populate the framework definition table. The sub-committee has met once during this reporting period.
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Advocacy and Information Policy, Education and Professional Development

Second Activity
The committee, working with previous committee members, harvested the content of Metaware.Buzz before the site was shuttered. The content is currently stored in the Metadata Standards Committee Google drive. We are exploring options within the ALA framework for making the information available again.
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Organizational Stability and Sustainability

What will your group be working on for the next three months?
We will be working to transition the Metadata Standards Assessment framework to the next set of committee members to continue the work. We're exploring options for outgoing members to continue to work on the project through assigned sub-group work. We will be meeting at the ALA Annual conference to discuss next steps..

Submitted by Michael Bolam on 05/24/2019

Diversity and Inclusion Committee – February 2019 Report


The group met 2-3 times this quarter.

Recent Activities

First Activity
We are currently organizing a LITA presentation panel for ALA Annual 2019. We have corresponded with and met the selected participants and are starting to investigate logistical issues.
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Advocacy and Information Policy, Education and Professional Development

Second Activity
Creating standard language for opening LITA programming with land acknowledgements and standard of conduct. We thought this was important to focus on after the events at ALA Midwinter 2019.
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Organizational Stability and Sustainability

Third Activity
We have determined the inactive members of the D & I group and have asked Emily Morton Owens for additional members.
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Organizational Stability and Sustainability

What will your group be working on for the next three months?
We will continue to work on organizing the ALA Annual panel, including one more meeting with the panelists.

Submitted by Jharina Pascual on 04/01/2019

LITA / ALCTS Metadata Standards Committee – February 2019 Report


The group met 4-6 times this quarter.

Recent Activities

First Activity
The committee got support from the LITA executive board to move to a rotating Chair/Vice-Chair (Chair Elect) model to better support to continuing work of the committee. The ALCTS Co-Chair is communicating with the ALCTS board for approval from them. Additionally, I communicated with the LITA Appointments Committee to assist with the appointment for next year's committee chair. We're also working to get the appointments back in alignment, since they got out of sync this year.
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Organizational Stability and Sustainability

Second Activity
Continued work on the Assessment for Fields in Metadata Standards project. The committee has selected a data model for assessing standards and will be moving into the testing phase to ensure the model works before any additional work is completed.
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Advocacy and Information Policy, Education and Professional Development

Third Activity
The committee has begun investigating options for moving the committee blog, Metaware.Buzz from a personally hosted location to something under the ALA umbrella.
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Organizational Stability and Sustainability

What will your group be working on for the next three months?
Continuing the Metadata Assessment Framework development, with the intent of modeling a draft version by the end of the year.

Submitted by Michael Bolam on 03/29/2019

Intellectual Freedom Committee – February 2019 Report


The group met 4+ times this quarter.

Recent Activities

First Activity
Intellectual Freedom manual updates – We have been working on updating the interpretations to the Library Bill of Rights for the Intellectual freedom manual.
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Advocacy and Information Policy, Education and Professional Development

Second Activity
Interpretations working groups – I am the chair of the Access to Digital Information, Resources, and Networks interpretation working group which has met twice. I am also on the working groups for the Privacy interpretation and the minors and internet activity. The work on these interpretations will continue through spring and will be presented to Council at Annual. I am also signed up to work on several FAQ’s related to the interpretations.
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Advocacy and Information Policy, Education and Professional Development

Third Activity
IFC meeting – I attended the Intellectual Freedom Committee meeting in Chicago March 22-24. During this meeting, we reviewed all the comments from the working groups for the interpretations, and FAQ documents in preparation for widespread ALA review and a council vote at Annual.
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Advocacy and Information Policy

What will your group be working on for the next three months?
Over the next three months, work will continue on several of the interpretations, and FAQ documents in preparation for the annual conference. I am leading several of the working groups, and I am a member of several others that all have planned online meetings during the next few months.

Is there anything LITA could have provided during this time that would have helped your group with its work?
No.

What support would be needed to make that member engagement happen?
{Not sure at this time.}

Submitted by Matt Beckstrom on 03/29/2019

LITA / ALCTS Metadata Standards Committee – December 2018 Report


The group met 2-3 times this quarter.

Recent Activities

First Activity
Continued work on the Assessment for Fields in Metadata Standards project. The committee is continuing the information gathering around assessment of fields/elements in metadata standards. The literature review has revealed some adjacent research, but nothing specifically like the proposed “Metadata Assessment Framework”. Next steps include arranging the committee into research groups to begin modeling the framework.
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Advocacy and Information Policy, Education and Professional Development

Second Activity
Less attention has been given to our secondary project, a follow-up to the 2017-2018 project to investigate inclusion and diversity in metadata standards. A draft report should be available soon, with intent to publish before the end of the year.
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Advocacy and Information Policy

What will your group be working on for the next three months?
Continuing the Metadata Assessment Framework development, with the intent of modeling a draft version by the end of the year. Completing the follow-up report on diversity & inclusion in metadata standards.

Submitted by Michael Bolam on 01/10/2019