The NY Collective of Radical Reference is organizing a Library Education Forum on the state of LIS education.
What’s it all about?

This will not be a place to critique specific programs or faculty members. Instead, we hope to give voice to students and recent graduates who have only been able to participate in this general discussion as passive listeners. Be a part of shaping library education for the future. Give light to your own education, your search for work, skills you were glad to have learned and those you wish you had. Gain perspective on where LIS education is heading. Although professors and administrators will be invited to attend, the voice that will be heard will be yours—the student or recent graduate, with the hope that this will be an opportunity for those who are used to teaching to learn from us, the students.

Sounds like fun. It’s a bit far for a one-day conf., so I can’t commit to being there … but I find it generally intriguing.

It’s official: ALA2006 will be in New Orleans:

AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION TO HOLD 2006 ANNUAL CONFERENCE IN NEW
ORLEANS

(CHICAGO) The following statement has been issued by American Library Association (ALA) President Michael Gorman:
“I am pleased to announce that we are planning to hold our 2006 ALA Annual Conference in New Orleans.
“As you know, we have been following the situation in Louisiana very closely over the last two months, and have been receiving almost daily reports from local authorities on the damage and reconstruction efforts following Hurricane Katrina. Last week, a delegation from ALA traveled to New Orleans to assess the situation. The delegation found that downtown, the French Quarter, and the Garden District had largely escaped flooding, and that essential services have been fully restored in those areas. They found the conference center and conference hotels bustling with hundreds of workman repairing broken windows, installing new drywall and laying new carpeting. Restaurants are reopening on a daily basis, and plans are already underway for Mardi Gras in February.
“Our primary concern, of course, must always be the health and safety of our members. Both the Louisiana Department of Public Health and the Federal Environmental Protection Agency have found no cause for concern on the part of visitors to New Orleans. By law, all of the ALA conference hotels have conducted or will soon be conducting EPA air quality audits and all restaurants must meet strict inspection requirements prior to reopening. While much publicized, health advisories regarding mold have directed to those re-entering flooded houses.
“We realize that many sections of the city, and particularly the Ninth Ward, have suffered tragic damage, and that many New Orleans residents have lost their homes forever. If we truly care about the residents of New Orleans, however, the best thing that the association and its members can do is to go to New Orleans and lead the reconstruction by example. Our conference will help to provide the jobs and tax revenues needed if residents are to reestablish their lives and for the city to fully restore services, including library services. We speak often of how libraries build communities, and we now have chance to show the country and world that librarians build communities, too.
“I hope that you will join me in New Orleans. I am certain that we will have an extraordinarily productive and enjoyable conference, as we enjoy the welcome and celebrate the rebirth of a city we all love.
“More information on the reconstruction in New Orleans, as well as sources for further information on the health and safety issues discussed above, will follow.”

I’ll be pretty ambivalent for the obvious reasons for a while …

(Caveat lector: I chose not to blog any sessions at LITA, mostly because I knew I couldn’t summon the level of concentration needed to do a good con-grunt. There are lots of good entries on the LITA Forum at the LITA blog, if you want the full flavor of the conference.)
Opening Session: Googlezon VI: Return of the Librarian
I’ll provide a quote from the beginning of Roy Tennant’s talk that may have some context later on: “Like some sort of grade B movie, we’ve stood idly by while Googlezon has kidnapped our patrons and ravaged our collection and building budgets. Are we going to let them get away with it? Of course not! Come hear about how librarians can still vanquish Googlezon and win back our rightful place as the guardians of the world’s knowledge and all that is good.”

Continue reading →

From Web4Lib:

“LET‚ÄôS GO LIBRARY EXPO” ONLINE CONFERENCES

On Thursday, July 28, 2005 the first of an ongoing series of online conferences about hot topics in librarianship and information technology will be held. The series is called “Let’s Go Library Expo” and the July 28 online conference will focus on “Books, eBooks, and Audiobooks.” The keynote speaker will be author Asra Nomani (Author of the new book Standing Alone in Mecca, one woman’s pilgrimage to reclaim the rightful role of women in Islam).
Participation in this inaugural conference is free of charge for conference attendees. All you need to participate is a computer with a sound card, speakers, and an Internet connection. If you want to speak using Voice-over-IP (in addition to text chat) you need a computer microphone.
…
For more information about “Let’s Go Library Expo: Books, eBooks, and Audiobooks,” the July 28 online conference, go here. This online conference is supported by the Mid-Illinois
Talking Book Center, the North Suburban Library System near Chicago, and the Alliance Library System in central Illinois.
…
For additional information about the entire “Let’s Go Library Expo” series, click here.
“Let’s Go Library Expo” is a service of Planet Library, an emerging full-service online library that will provide a wide variety of content and services for library users worldwide.