Huh, Kansas, what’s that doing here? Well, Diane and I attended the Library Camp Kansas 2008 unconference last week and we couldn’t have had more fun if we tried. What’s an unconference you ask, it’s the best parts of the conference and nothing but. There are no presentations, there are no people spending a half-hour just talking about what they do at their library, just conversation, conversation, and more conversation. Topics were suggested by the attendees in advance but the first business of the day was to decide, on the spot, what we wanted to talk about. There were three sessions, morning, lunch, and afternoon and in each case there were 5-7 topics to pick from. As a topic suggester, I got to be the leader of the morning talk about "
cheap and inexpensive tools" (unofficially known as "cheap & inexpensive with Michael") and the lunchtime discussion of Creative Commons. In the afternoon I participated in the discussion of "2.0" issues. For those that didn’t attend, most of the notes from the sessions have been posted on the
unconference’s wiki. Photos from the event can be found in
flickr of course. If you’re looking for other blog posts and media from attendees search your favorite places for the tag "libcampks2008".
There is no real way to express exactly how fun this was and how re-energizing the whole experience was for me. However, David Lee King’s short video of the event might give you an idea.
For our readers here in Nebraska, keep an eye on this blog as there’s already a small group working on bringing such and unconference to the state in the Fall. Once it’s announced sign up fast as space will be limited.
At the April 11 Nebraska Library Association New Members Round Table Spring Meeting, the question of educational programs for new library employees led me to wonder if this would be a good topic for the unconference? Would anyone be interested in getting involved in an unconference session on this topic?