Lita Forum 2015 Takeaways

Jacob Shelby

Overview

• General info
• Session highlights
• Takeaways

Demographics

• Between 250 and 300 attendees
• Attendees of varying ages and professional backgrounds
• Enthusiastic about technology
• Very welcoming and open to networking

Conference Structure

• Three keynotes, one each day of the conference
• Set of four concurrent talks/dual talks per session
  • Link to schedule
• 45 minutes per talk, ~20 minutes per dual talk
• All sessions were on the same floor and close to each other

Project Management

• Title: Project Management 101
• Link to presentation
• Plan as much before the project begins as possible
• Avoid "scope creep" by establishing clear scope and goals, and shared commitment by the project team
• Documentation, documentation, documentation!

Knowledge Management

• Title: Why knowledge management? Achieving organizational buy-in through a unified and holistic approach... and the right technology tools
• Organizational buy-in is key
  • Define staff needs and use-cases
  • Logical organization of content
  • Feedback from staff
  • Training
• Challenges
  • Overcoming resistance to change
  • Old habits

Continuing Education

• Title: Starting and Sustaining a Coding Workshop for Librarians
• Advantages
  • Productivity
  • Reduce dependency on IT
• Solve real-world problems (the training needs to apply to their work)
• Even though this was in the context of coding, this applies to training for software such as Excel spreadsheets and CyPoint

Linked Data

Other Sessions

• Link to session titles and uploaded slides
• Link to my session notes

Life Inside and Outside the Echo Chamber

• Bringing the conference experience home
• Having an idea/seeing an opportunity and acting upon it
• Conference-goers should bring the experience back, and that experience should be disseminated throughout the library 
  • This is how we exit the echo chamber and continue to grow

Takeaways

• Focus on our user community, include them in "naming initiatives", and help them tell their story
• Emphasize training and continuing education. Technology isn't going away!
• Good knowledge management facilitates good communication, openness/visibility, and preservation of institutional knowledge

Thank You

Jacob Shelby

jtshelby@iastate.edu