Microsoft Word - September_ITAL_dowling_final.docx President’s Message Thomas Dowling INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES AND LIBRARIES | SEPTEMBER 2015 doi: 10.6017/ital.v34i3.8966 1 Fall has arrived, faster than expected (as it always does). It seems like ALA Annual just wrapped up in San Francisco, but we're already well underway with the coming year's activities. The National Forum 2015 will be here before you know it. In a fall season crowded with good technology conferences, LITA Forum consistently proves its value as a small, engaging, and focused meeting. Technologists, strategists, and front-‐line librarians come together to discuss the tools they make and use to provide cutting edge library services. In addition to great LITA programming, this year we're working with colleagues from LLAMA (the Library Leadership and Management Association) to provide a set of programs focused on the natural cooperation of management and technologies in libraries. There are great preconferences on makerspaces and web analytics, keynote addresses, over 50 concurrent sessions, and a lot of networking opportunities. Click on over to litaforum.org, and I hope to see you in Minneapolis, November 12-‐ 15. Not too long after Forum, we'll be in Boston for Midwinter, and then Annual in Orlando. The Program Planning Committee is already at work selecting the best programs for Annual. Next summer is also the start of LITA’s 50th Anniversary celebrations! Of course, not everything we do involves travel and in-‐person meetings. LITA’s fall schedule of webinars includes sessions on patron privacy, Creative Commons, personal digital archiving, and a second iteration of Top Technologies Every Librarian Needs to Know. On the staff side, we are happy to say that Jenny Levine has started as LITA’s new Executive Director. Jenny comes to us from ALA’s IT and Telecommunications Services department, where she is still putting in some time bringing a new version of ALA Connect online. Jenny and the Governing Board are already working together virtually: we are about to select our Emerging Leaders for the year and are working on an exercise to set divisional priorities, with an eye toward drafting a new strategic plan. The Board will hold two online meetings this fall. As always, these are open meetings, so if you’re interested in your association’s governance, you’re welcome to sit in. Watch the Board’s area in Connect for details, or look for upcoming posts to LITA-‐L and litablog.org. And if you need to contact the Board, you can reach us at http://www.ala.org/lita/about/board/contact. I hope to meet as many LITA members as possible this year, at one of the upcoming in-‐person meetings or online, or just drop me a line on Connect. It’s going to be a great year for LITA. Thomas Dowling (dowlintp@wfu.edu) is LITA President 2015-‐16 and Director of Technologies, Z. Smith Reynolds Library, Wake Forest University, Winston-‐Salem, North Carolina.