Monday 3 June 2013

Umbrella's UNbrella

Hello, are you heading to July's CILIP Umbrella conference up here in sunny Manchester?

Don't forget to sign up for the Unbrella Unconferences, being organised by CILIP's New Professionals Group and Librarycamp, as part of Umbrella.

There will be two mini-librarycamps - here's the schedule  - please sign up at Eventbrite if you'd like to come. (Please note: you will need a ticket for Umbrella to attend UNbrella).

Librarycamps are unconferences which means the participants lead the agenda – in fact, there isn’t an agenda until people make suggestions for what they’d like to talk about at the start of the event.

It’s a PowerPoint free zone and there are no keynotes speakers. Anyone can propose or lead or facilitate a session, just turn up and pitch your idea at the start of the event. You can also share your proposals on the Unbrella wiki ahead of the event.

It’s an unconference so we follow the (hippy) principles of Open Space events - people can wander in and out of sessions, tweet, blog and take photos. Past librarycamps have included sessions on:

Design your own library and information qualification
Leadership without portfolio
3D printing
Codeclubs in libraries
Facilitating the "Coming of Age" of Open Source Software in libraries
DRM is broken and that's OK
How university resource centres can get the best out of mobile learning and open access
The economics of happiness and libraries

If you'd rather speak to a real life librarian about unconferences and how they can help you, don't hesitate to email the Librarycamp-ers at librarycamp@yahoo.com. If you're on Twitter we'll be tweeting announcements and much more as @librarycamp.

See you there? Sign up at Eventbrite if you'd like to come.

4 comments:

  1. Hi, this looks great, I'm just really disappointed it's only open to people attending Umbrella, having been told a while ago that it would be open to everyone, I was looking forward to being able to come to this. Many of us can't get to Umbrella because of (lack of) funding, and like the vibe of unconferences anyway (I had some ideas that seemed perfect to pitch at UnBrella, that weren't substantial enough to consider presenting at Umbrella even if I'd been able to conjure up some funding to attend), so this seemed like the perfect solution!

    I hope it's successful and people enjoy it, and there's some way next time around to make it a fring event for those of us not able to attend the main event.

    :(
    Emily

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  2. Hi Emily
    I'm one of the mini-unconference organisers and I'm disappointed it is open to non-members too. It was CILIP's call in the end - we would prefer to have it opened up, but I'm guessing it would be difficult to manage as it is taking place in once of the Umbrella conference buildings. Earlier in the year we mooted a fringe event on Tuesday night in a local pub - we'll still be meeting up I think - I just need to confirm the venue.
    There are quite a few librarycamps taking place this year so you haven't missed out on pitching your session ideas. I've put a list here on the blog. In fact there is an free (no cilip membership required) unconference about public libraries this Saturday in the Midlands. Details here: http://pmlgunconference2013.eventbrite.co.uk/

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  3. Typo alert! I meant to type 'disappointed it is NOT open to non-members too.'

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  4. Thanks Sue, I understand it's CILIP's call and I can imagine it would be a nightmare trying to manage access to the buildings with different attendees allowed into different rooms within the same building, it would get complicated!

    Will keep an eye out for others and see if there's any I can get to, just thought this would be interesting as it's in Manchester (like me!) and liked the idea of 2 short days and linking it it with a bigger conference.

    (And typos from me too, I'm quite amused by the idea of a "fring" event...)

    Hope it goes well!
    Emily

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