Category: Education and Professional Development

Education Committee – December 2018 Report


The group met 2-3 times this quarter.

Recent Activities

First Activity
The committee has several initiatives that we are working on:
• We have released an RFP with a deadline of November 2nd so that we can prepare our Spring 2019 lineup
• We are planning to deploy a needs assessment in Spring 2019 (modeled after the one that was implemented a few years ago) to get a better sense of the type and format of content the membership is interested in
• We have created three working subgroups to organize committee documents, and refine some of our practices around working with presenters and assessing our offerings
o Documentation: Jason, Steven, Margaret
o Instructions for presenters: Cindy, James, Holbrook,
o Webinar assessment/evaluation: Ally, Joanna, Frank
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Education and Professional Development

What will your group be working on for the next three months?
We will be evaluating RFP proposals, charging our working groups, and preparing the needs assessment survey

Is there anything LITA could have provided during this time that would have helped your group with its work?
N/A

Please provide suggestions for future education topics, initiatives, publications, resources, or other activities that could be developed based on your group’s work.
Pending needs assessment in Spring of 2019

Additional comments or concerns:
N/A

Submitted by Cinthya Ippoliti on 10/18/2018

Program Planning Committee – September 2018 Report


The group met 2-3 times this quarter.

Recent Activities

First Activity
Program submission review and selection – Each committee member reviewed 12-13 of the submitted proposals and ranked them following the rubric. The top programs were selected and submitted via the review site.
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Education and Professional Development

What will your group be working on for the next three months?
Pre-conference submission review will occur sometime in November. That will be all for PPC until Annual conference rolls around.

Is there anything LITA could have provided during this time that would have helped your group with its work?
Not at this time.

Please provide suggestions for future education topics, initiatives, publications, resources, or other activities that could be developed based on your group’s work.
This is a larger ALA decision, but having the pre-conferences submitted for review through the review site and at the same time as the program proposals would be helpful.

Additional comments or concerns:
None at this time.

Submitted by Natalie DeJonghe on 10/15/2018

Membership Development Committee – September 2018 Report


The group met 2-3 times this quarter.

Recent Activities

First Activity
LITAchat planning –
planning for continuation of LITAchat on Twitter events was done with two LITAchats being planned.
October 26 LITAchat will be discussing LITA Forum 2018 with a member of CAM moderating the chat, and members of the LITA Forum Planning committee discussing what to look forward to.
November 30 LITAchat will be inviting 3 participants to share and discuss an interesting project they're currently working on.
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Education and Professional Development, Member Engagement

Second Activity
Member Engagement opportunity at LITA Forum 2018 –
A member of MDC is reaching out to LITA Forum Planning folks to conduct a Post-It note feedback survey regarding LITA membership experience for assessment.
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Member Engagement, Organizational Stability and Sustainability

Third Activity
LITA Happy Hour planning –
discussions and planning commencing regarding LITA Happy Hour at Midwinter Seattle. A few venues have already been identified with member of MDC located in Seattle to make contact with venues for planning.
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Member Engagement

Fourth Activity
Conference Kickoff Planning –
discussion and planning on the conference kickoff/LITA Open House has begun for Midwinter Seattle. MDC has decided to make a recorded presentation discussing LITA's offerings at Midwinter and of being a LITA member as doing more virtual asynchronous engagement work is becoming more and more important. Depending on how the activity goes, a hybrid live/recorded kickoff event may take place at Annual 2019.
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Member Engagement, Organizational Stability and Sustainability

Fifth Activity
LITA Tactical Plan –
Work is continuing slowly in regards to tasks on LITA's Tactical plan designated for Membership Development. To make some of the work and desired outcomes clearer and more succinct, a cleanup process of our Trello workboard has commenced to make action items more discernible and moving items that are more appropriate in Connect or Google Docs to those spaces.
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Education and Professional Development, Organizational Stability and Sustainability

What will your group be working on for the next three months?
Continuation of event planning at Midwinter and LITA Forum, continuation of LITAchat events for January, February, and March, continuation of work on tactical plan tasks. Beginning discussions and planning for ALA Annual events.

Submitted by Robert Wilson on 10/12/2018

Frederick G. Kilgour Award Committee – September 2018 Report


The group met 0 times this quarter.

Recent Activities

First Activity
Sent greeting message to Committee members
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Member Engagement

Second Activity
Posted award announcement to LITA-L
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Education and Professional Development

Third Activity
Submitted a CAM promotion request
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Member Engagement

What will your group be working on for the next three months?
Publicizing the award and drumming up nominations

Is there anything LITA could have provided during this time that would have helped your group with its work?
You got us everything we needed – you are awesome!

Submitted by Aimee Fifarek on 10/08/2018

ITAL Editorial Board – September 2018 Report


The group met 2-3 times this quarter.

Recent Activities

First Activity
Published the September issue of ITAL: https://ejournals.bc.edu/ojs/index.php/ital/issue/view/1002
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Education and Professional Development, Member Engagement

Second Activity
Finalized job description for editorial board members (posted in ALA Connect: https://connect.ala.org/lita/viewdocument/job-description-for-ital-editorial)
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Organizational Stability and Sustainability

What will your group be working on for the next three months?
Ongoing work — reviewing articles and preparing issues of the journal

Submitted by Ken Varnum on 10/05/2018

Web Coordinating Committee – September 2018 Report


The group met 4-6 times this quarter.

Recent Activities

First Activity
During the period of June through September 2018, the WCC advanced work on the new LITA Jobs website. We ironed out lingering technical issues and further refined the site. We feel the site is nearing completion. While we still need to do more user testing, and are also waiting on a PayPal account to be set up, the basic functionality is in place.
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Education and Professional Development

Second Activity
In late August 2018, we received word that ALA was transitioning to using Zoom and moving away from Adobe Connect. The WCC was instrumental in helping to capture stored LITA webinar and meeting recordings. Within a day of the call for volunteers going out, WCC members sprang into action. Nearly everyone downloaded at least one video.
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Organizational Stability and Sustainability


Third Activity
The WCC continued to maintain our WordPress installations. We regularly update the themes and plugins of each install in order to keep our sites secure.
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Organizational Stability and Sustainability


Fourth Activity
The WCC migrated to a new WordPress forms plugin, Gravity forms. This work was accomplished during the period of June through September. We are currently ready to make about half the forms live, although there are some lingering technical questions to address.
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Organizational Stability and Sustainability

What will your group be working on for the next three months?
There are a few things we plan to work on in the next three months. First, we will perform some user testing of the new Jobs site. This will involve creating user profiles and posting job ads in order to ensure all functionality works and there are no technical glitches. Second, we will be working to normalize branding on all LITA WordPress sites. This includes ensuring all such sites have the LITA logo, proper ALA branding, and link back to the main LITA website. In the process we will also address GDPR compliance by ensuring there are links to ALA’s Privacy policy on all LITA WordPress websites.

Is there anything LITA could have provided during this time that would have helped your group with its work?
We feel we had adequate resources with which to work.

Submitted by Michael Paulmeno on 10/01/2018