Unconference uncommittee 2008

• Kathryn Greenhill k.greenhill@murdoch.edu.au

This email was sent out to some people I thought may be interested in unorganising the unconf this year.

Hiya,

Just wondering whether you are interested in organising a library unconference this year? Or if you know anyone else who may be?

Here's my prelim thoughts - just starting points for us to build on and change ....

VENUE: The State Library now have free (reliable Nick? ) wifi. The library at Uni of Notre Dame in Freo also offered their venue for the next unconf

DATE:  I thought maybe whenever the country librarians are up that corresponds to mid-semester break for uni ??? Despite my prejudice, I thought Friday actually worked well last year.

THEME: "Getting our hands dirty" ???? Thought we could still be unconferencey- whoever turns up and whatever they do is the right thing.... but maybe ask for a few people to arrange sessions that involve the participants doing and producing something in a PC lab ????

SESSIONS: I'd love to do a "show and tell" about our favourite devices - I hope to have my OLPC laptop, we can have a wii demo, portable SD card readers, iPod Touches etc.

I'd love to try the "libjam" idea this year too - 3 mins to talk about really cool things your library is doing....maybe we could have that as the opening diverter while the program is being written up on the wiki ???

SPONSERSHIP - we need to be a bit more careful about our accounting this year and get sponsership early. Seems like we only really need catering? I thought the idea of staying in the venue to eat was a very good one.

MEETING METHOD - I loved the online way we did it last year, using the google group http://groups.google.com.au/group/unconfwalib . Happy to have a prelim f2f meeting in a cafe somewhere if ppl would like to....

The major feedback from last year's unconf was that ppl wanted reliable wireless. They also felt that they missed out on some sessions they would have liked to attend due to the timetabling (not much we can do about that ?).

I thought the way we asked all participants to pitch in was great, as was the way we had people give a one minute intro to their sessions at the start.

I've made a wiki page for this years' planning at: http://unconferencewalibrary.pbwiki.com/2008-Planning . Right now it has a copy of this email and a list of unorganisers on it (umm...well...me...).

Any other ideas, thoughts?