Activity Ideas

Meetings

• Set up a regular meeting time (probably monthly) and make the most of them; don't just wait for them to happen

Speakers

• A brownbag lecture, either for SLIS or the whole department depending on the topic
• Allen Wolf (sp?) in New Media Center did a research project on why faculty do/don't use ditigal libraries; guest speaker for all SLIS? [Suggestion from Nathan Riley]
• People from the Library Technology Group (LTG)  (Stephen Meyer -alum - suggestion from Kristin E.)
• People from the Digital Content group (DCG) (Vicky Tobias - alumn -  their latest project was the Artists Book Collection http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/ArtistsBks/ suggestion from Kristin E.)
• People from WHS who do a lot of digitization (cooperative project with SAA?: Michael Edmonds did a lot with digitization for Turning Points (http://wisconsinhistory.org/turningpoints/)  and is a good speaker; The image collection is also great but can't remember who is the main contact...http://wisconsinhistory.org/whi/  Suggestion from Kristin E.)
• Dorothy Salo (UW digital repository librarian - can give great talks on dspace, markup languages, open access notes by Kristin E.)
• Someone specializing in digital preservation (cooperative project with SAA?):  (ask Ciaran Trace who at Wi Historical Society might be able to talk about this as they have large digital collection of photos.  Alternatively could ask Vicky Tobias from DCG to talk about their strategies - Kristin E.)
• A career roundtables with a more technical focus
  • Gather people who work in these areas to do Q&A about what it's really like
  • Gather people who hire in these areas to to Q&A about what they look for
  • Academic vs public vs corporate IT oriented jobs (suggestion Kristin E.)

Sharing Knowledge

• Check with STS out of the Computer Science department, they make teaching materials available online
• Set a goal to have one or more of us publish an article in a LITA journal this year
• David Zwicky taight "podcasting for librarians" in the past, would be willing to again
• Learn a topic and then offer to teach it to others
  • Bring in a speakerfor LITA before-hand to help prep for that 
• Set up an Experts List for use within SLIS
  • Department of Communications has an Experts Database, but it may not be a match for our needs
  • Experts of information technology things who are willing to help others
  • Or maybe just experts on anything
  • Might be a fun and useful web programming project
• Maybe related to the above: organize a "HELP!" list of people who will help on various technical topics
• Kristin E. Note - I created the SLIS LITA facebook group in order so that (a) members will know what each other look like and (b) local alumni will join and you can check out what they do, and contact them for speaker opportunities, internships, or information on library IT careers.  Please join this group on facebook!  It is listed on my Facebook page.

Career Stuff

• Mock interviews
• Resume workshop
• Kristin E note - MOCK PUBLIC PRESENTATIONS  this is more key that you may realize.  You will likely have a "job talk" that will be attended by a group of your potential future colleagues.  And you will need to be able to give a bang up instructional presentation on something for this job talk.

Hands-On

• Give people the chance to set up a Linux box (KE note - Steve Paling may be interested in this)
• Give people the chance to set up a Web Server
• Give people the chance to do some web programming (probably PHP)

Current Events

• Use these as a source for speakers and topics
• Come up with a good list of news sources to monitor
  • WiscNews
  • News feed on library.wisc.edu
  • LITA forum
  • others?
• Maybe create a mash-up RSS feed that aggregates interesting news for other LITA members, or other SLISers

Other

• Check with LITA for ideas (KE note - be cautious about this if you are not an actually dues paying member of the national org!)