I can’t believe it’s actually been more than 3 weeks since I attended the 2009 LITA National Forum (if you are a member of ALA Connect (which is free) you can also download all the presenter’s materials). This is my fourth year attending the Forum, and I think it was by far the best I’ve been to. Full disclosure: I was on the planning committee…but I think my enjoyment was due in large part to the fact that I knew so many colleagues this time around. Over the last four years I’ve tried to put more into my participation in the organization and the Forum in order to get more out of it, and it’s paid off.

That’s not to say that there weren’t some really great sessions though. This year, the sessions that stick most in my memory were the keynotes by David Weinberger (author of Everything is Miscellaneous…which I always describe as the perfect, non-threatening way to describe metadata (and in large part, my job) to my parents) and Liz Lawley of the Lab for Social Computing at the University of Rochester. Both explored the immersive nature of technology, how it is changing the way we think, the things we can do, the things we want to do. Along with the third keynote by Joan Lipincott of the Coalition for Networked Infrastructure, the general theme of the conference, “Open and Mobile,” was thoroughly investigated. (I urge you to download and listen to the general session podcasts at http://litablog.org/).

While the “open” end of things is something that I think about quite a bit (open-source, open access, open archives,…the list goes on), “mobile” is probably not on my mind as much as it should be. Beyond the (admittedly very cool) integration of special collections materials into things like guided campus tours (ala NC State’s WolfWalk…so cool! And mentioned in Joan Lipincott’s keynote) and the kind of ARG that was discussed by Liz Lawley, I have a hard time envisioning how the special collections materials we are digitizing can really be used on a hand-held device. For example, this map (http://digital.lib.ecu.edu/1034) is hard enough to see and understand on my relatively big monitor. I can’t imagine trying to parse it on an iPhone.

One of the parts of David Weinberger’s talk that was heavily tweeted was the statement “We have entered the age of Good Enough.” Meaning basically, (and I’m kind of butchering the point…you should really listen to the keynote!) that in the “age of abundance” we have entered, getting a quick, mostly right answer will do 99.9% of the time. But that just doesn’t square with my experience of archival research. What about archival research or any research with primary sources is quick? It is so heavily dependent on deep thinking and pulling conclusions out of the context of groups of documents that it isn’t something that a simple search will enable. It’s an argument, not an answer.

I think back to a comment made by Roy Tennant at the LITA Top Technology Trends session at ALA Annual back in July…although there is a trend towards smaller and smaller devices (web-enabled phones, netbooks, etc.), we will still have a need for our laptop/desktop computers. Each device just becomes more suited to the tasks it is best suited for. GPS-enabled directions? Finding a good Chinese restaurant within 5 blocks? Getting a map to the stacks so that I can find the book I’m looking for? Go to my mobile device. Working with Photoshop or Illustrator? Writing an article? Working with a digital special collection? Go to my computer…for now. I suppose over the next few years the uses of each of these things will continue to change. The thing I can’t seem to predict is how special collections research may need to change in the age of mobile.

What do you think?