Posts Con Wiebrands and I gave a paper about library unconferences last week at the LIANZA conference. You can find the whole 5000 or so words here: The unconference: a new model for better professional communication . Ignore the title – we both have *no* idea why we claimed it was *better*, rather than *different*.
We plan to dust it off a bit and submit it for publishing. We are not sure which journal – it’s not the library tech that we usually write. Any suggestions from you about a suitable journal would be most appreciated. We will add in the results of our survey of participants of four library unconferences in Australia and the United States.
The paper covers:
- Definition
- Open Spaces Technology
- History
- Elements of unconferences (decisions you need to make if you are holding one)
- organisers
- publicity
- costs
- food
- venue
- numbers
- invitees
- weekday or weekend?
- volunteer participation
- facilitator and deciding topics for the day
- opening session
- Comparison between unconferences and conferences
- Results of survey of participants of the 2008 Western Australian Library Unconference.
Thanks for providing a link to your LIANZA paper. I really enjoyed reading it and learning more about unconferences. It is very timely as I am attending my first next week.
Hi Kathryn
I enjoyed reading your paper too, its a great summary of unconferences. You might try Alan Bundy’s APLIS and also Dr Glen Holt, who edits Public Libraries Quarterly – he could be interested too.
good work!
cheers
Christine
Thanks Rachel and Christine. It’s really nice to write about something I feel passionate about, rather than just a work project that I think I have to write about so I can put it on my CV – makes it very easy to write.
We didn’t think of a sector specific journal, but it actually makes sense…
I enjoyed the paper too and the conference sounds great. I know Library Hi Tech News are looking for articles. I’ll forward the email from them, JG
[...] participants what they wanted to find out in the session. This is a technique that Con and I first used at LIANZA as a way to show people how an unconference may work – but it actually looks useful for conference [...]