Camp for NJ Library Geeks?
I just noticed Ed Summers posted a link to DemoCampDC1, a local BarCamp being organized in the Washington D.C. area, "to build an active community for people in the DC area to show up and informally share geeky stuff." I've heard of these BarCamps before, but I never really took the time to look into it. Incidentally, I've been looking for good models for hosting and organizing such a group for a while now, inspired by the work Brian Hancock has done over the years with the Technology Awareness Group (TAG). The way the D.C. group is going about it looks like a promising one: start out building a community with very informal meetings outside of work hours, to test the waters, so to speak, and build a rapport with interested parties. And if there's sufficient interest, hold a full BarCamp event (perhaps a one-day hands-on symposium / workshop).
I like this model quite a bit, and I'd be interested in trying to get something similar started up in New Jersey. We have tons of talented library geeks in our many academic, public, and special libraries, not to mention general geeks whose interests and skill sets intersect with ours.
Why BarCamp? Don't we have enough meetings and symposiums? Sure, we're all spread thin. Our niche would be to bring together the TAG-style dog & pony shows with code sprints and other collaborative development a la the Access Hackfest. We're looking for a group that will be innovative, collegial, social, practical, and – not to be corny, but – fun-loving.
Here's what I envision:
- A number of very informal get-togethers spread throughout the state in order to foster inclusivity, with a "point person" in each area to report back about the level of interest
- Rotating event venues, possibly one per "point person" above who would ideally receive institutional support in one form or another
- Partnerships with other in-state groups to take advantage of cross-pollination without crossing purposes, such as TAG, NJLA's IT section, NJ-ASIS&T, and some student groups from Rutgers SCILS
Any of you New Jerseyans interested? Think it's a waste of time? Drop a comment or trackback here, or send me e-mail. I'm very interested in your feedback.
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NJ Library BarCamp?…
Michael J. Giarlo. has proposed a New Jersey BarCamp for Library Geeks in his Technosophia blog. His plan is based on a model of a group in D.C. and sounds very interesting. His reasons for wanting to start a NJ Library BarCamp include:
Why BarCamp? …
I believe that it is imperitive for library technologists to federate and try to create generalized Web-based tools for libraries to use and share. So, I do think you're on the right track, Mike.
The one thing I worry about is that I will have to sit through presentations of things I'm really not interested in, or that I see little real application for in libraries. I need to be convinced that a presentation or workshop is really worth participating in. I don't really think that geeks are interested in sitting through dog and pony shows. I mean, if the audience is truly a bunch of geeks, we should simply should simply post our stuff to the web and let each other demo it for themselves. If it's still in the idea phase (or simply not translatable to the Web), then post it and let people shoot it down or praise it. Do we need to physically get together to talk about our individual projects, which may or may not be related to what each other is doing?
I recently had the pleasure to interview Michael Sikorsky from Cambrian House. (The podcast will be posted to Juxtaviews.com this Wednesday.) It was a fascinating conversation because his company sort of follows an open source model for developing software, but it actually works as a business. It's a community of coders, designers, and "inventors". You submit what you think is a good, necessary idea, and people vote on it's potential value. If your idea is popular and passes other market testing, then the community builds it and all contributors get "royalties". They only implement the most essential features, and "flintstone" lots of other features to see what catches on. If some feature is popular, they ramp up and build it quickly. This way, they invest little time in developing software that no one will use and develop only what has been proven to be useful and valuable.
With perhaps a little more work than it would take to organize an actual event, we could throw together an online community of NJLibrary hackers. I think the way to build more of a community amongst NJ Library technologists is to actually have a reason for them to come together, and that's finding common problems and working on solutions. I like the model of more testing of ideas and less building/demoing software that no one will use.
Let me follow up that last comment with the fact that I think it would be useful to work collaboratively and in-person on projects that we have in common. I'm particularly interested in the "Hackfest" idea and extreme programming get-togethers. I think they can be very productive.
But I really think these types of things need to be endorsed by each of our institutions/employers in some way. Any serious level of commitment on the part of individuals will require that (or some other model for receiving more than a "pat on the back"). Afterall, NJ libraries are the ultimate benefactors, they should help support something like this. While we all believe in helping to advance the role of libraries, I don't see a sustainable model in asking folks to contribute too much on their own time.
Thanks for your comments, Shaun. You raise a number of good points.
First, I should clarify that I wouldn't want to limit the scope of a NJ Library Camp to library technologists nor to web-based tools. I see library technologists being involved in large part, but I'd also like to see techie-leaning librarians and industry technologists with an interest in library tools and services get involved. And while web-based tools will likely be common topics, it'd be great to hear about other areas of library innovation — there's room for desktop apps, hardware innovations, specification discussion, and so forth.
We couldn't guarantee that the Camp would be all things to all people at all times; I am sure there will be presentations or sessions that are occasionally uninteresting to some of the participants. One of the rules of Camp, however, is that all participants get to vote on which presentations and sessions will be accepted, and they are frequently multi-track events. So you would have the ability to vote for things you'd be interested in, and you'd potentially have the option to choose among several different tracks, one of which would hopefully be of interest.
As far as applicability in the realm of libraries, the Camp planning and format would likely eliminate the chance of hearing about things that would be inapplicable. By design, all participants will have some interest in or connection to libraries, so we will have that in common at the outset. And, also by design, presenters are encouraged to show something that is currently in use, rather than postulating mere ideas or talking up a grant-funded project that is still but pie in the sky.
We don't want to see a bunch of powerpoints; we want to see projects in action, and share our ideas, and interact. Thus, the Camp would be designed such that every presentation involves a project that is already being applied in libraries, resolving the issue of non-applicability. There are other venues for dog & pony shows; Camp would be to take those dogs and ponies out of their stables and race them around a bit. :)
I do think that this should have an in-person component. There is a place for virtual communities, and Camp would make use of a Google Groups list and a Wiki (for instance) for planning, between-event discussion, wrap-up, and so forth. But there is tremendous potential in being able to gather in person. Part of the social dynamic is lost in the virtual realm. I see Camp equally as an event for professional development and as a social event, and it would be held outside of work hours.
Finding common problems is a great theme for the Camp group. In addition to sharing the projects we're working on and learning about others, there is a real opportunity for the group to spawn ad hoc software development cells via the social networking aspect of the event. I'd like to see that explicitly encouraged. The goal would not be to build software in a vacuum but to build on currently implemented solutions and to tackle common issues.
Your point about institutional support is well-taken. On one hand, a number of folks who are interested in the idea of Camp could make a concerted effort to get support. And we may indeed succeed. On the other hand, there's a bit of a catch-22. Some institutions may be resistant to supporting Camp until it has proven itself, so to speak, yet Camp may not be able to prove itself without getting folks to attend who might not be able to do so without institutional support.
This may not be as much of an issue at the outset where "events" will be informal, regional get-togethers at cafes, pubs, and so forth. And yet I have hope; the Camp model has been very successful and its community is growing. If others can make it work, I'm sure we can too, provided it's of value.