I did, however peek in on a Library and Information Technology Association (LITA) meeting bright and early one morning while I was still in my pajamas and making pancakes for my kids. LITA’s popular “Top Tech Trends” panel met at 8AM on Sunday (hallelujah?) and LITA had the foresight to use technology to make the meeting more accessible to those of us who couldn’t be in Denver to participate.

In addition to the now-familiar stream of Twitter updates from meeting attendees, LITA took things a few steps further, first by using something called Cover It Live to add moment-by-moment liveblogging updates to a post on the LITA Blog, then by streaming live video of the session on Jason Griffey‘s Ustream.TV account (a recording of the session is available there now).

This seems exactly like one of the things LITA should be doing right now: showing ALA that it can cheaply and easily reach out to members and non-members by providing some live conference coverage. My experience of watching a little of the streaming video and reading a chunk of the liveblog can’t really compare to the experience that actual attendees had. Video quality and selective liveblogging aside, I was a bit distracted making sure my kids didn’t pour maple syrup on each other. But I heard enough to be intrigued and to have a little side conversation online with some other people who were similarly keeping an ear and an eye on the proceedings.

Opening up a meeting this way can only help LITA and ALA. It’s not a substitute for being at the conference, it’s more like an advertisement for the conference and the association in general. The more people who get a chance to put their eye to the keyhole, the more people who will eventually decide they need to step through the door and be in that room for that meeting the next time around.