I was in DC recently starting on Monday, sadly conflicting with our meetup! (for both OLPC and DPLA meetings - the latter is a national digital library being developed by a consortium of existing libraries and foundations).
At the DPLA meeting, I mentioned the idea of a 'librarylab' which was warmly received. and which I hope to develop with a few partners as a proposed piece of future DPLA infrastructure: something that could be set up in any city that is introducing its public and other libraries to new library and collection tools [such as might be part of a DPLA platform]. A demo of such a library lab would be developed in DC.
I asked the Wiki Society of DC to consider being a local partner in this demo-project. while all costs will be covered by participating hosts or libraries, we need a partner group based in dc to help coordinate local meetings. The reason to have a dem site in DC is that the next large DPLA event will be hosted in DC in October, when good proposals will be showcased.
The specific proposal is below, with some discussion I will elaborate on it online after getting some more initial feedback from would-be users.
Wikimedia DC is a partner in this proposal - while we don't have an official entity in Boston it would be great to include the Boston Wikipedian network as well. And I would like to test out some of these ideas with our library colleagues here also... the reason to make the first demo site in DC is that the public presentation of all demos from the summer will again be in DC (in October).
SJ
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Ed Summers ehs@pobox.com Date: Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 12:11 PM Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-DC] DPLA statement of intent To: wikimedia-dc@lists.wikimedia.org
Wow, this is a great idea. I'm not sure I contribute any resources other than my time. But count me in.
//Ed
On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 3:30 AM, Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com wrote:
James is right -
For the demo this summer, we find a host space at a tech incubator or coworking space or savvy library; get loaner scanners and cameras and the like to build the prototype; get interested volunteers to come host workshops and parties and exhibits and classification contests. Hopefully there's minimal direct overhead cost; though we should have some partners with a few thousand dollars here and there in their budgets for this sort of exploratory work.
The end result should be a documented process for building out this sort of lab from scratch; what permanent and consumable supplies were used; what additional gear would make sense but was too rare/expensive/balky. Leading to a "lab in a box" inventory and pricelist, and some soft costs for expected overhead, maintenance, installation.
A 'DPLA infrastructure proposal' based on this might be something like targeting 3-5 cities this fall, 1 research-lab @ a libschool to help and monitor the process and advise on how to improve it, and an early crop of a dozen roving liblab alums who help make all of this happen. Then more over the spring, aiming for at least 1 liblab in every state by next summer, and 1 in every city with >10 public? sizeable? libraries by the end of the 18 months. That could be funded by grants from a combination of the association of state Governors and the consortium supporting DPLA-phase-1 [the first 18 months; a pool of funds will be available].
I'm making the details up, but you get the idea.
The demo work isn't about winning a grant per se, so much as demonstrating a useful piece of infrastructure that someone could carry out. None of us working on the demo might want to be involved in that next stage; but there's a lot of interest in the idea, so I'm certain some group would be glad to run with that and facilitate it on a national scale, if we can articulate the basic value using the library-rich DC community as an example.
SJ
2011/6/16 James Hare jamesmhare@gmail.com:
On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 2:15 AM, Ed Summers ehs@pobox.com wrote:
Hi Samuel,
On Wed, Jun 15, 2011 at 7:24 PM, Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com wrote:
We plan to define a LibraryLab, a standalone hackspace for people to work on digitization, annotation, collaborative publishing, and use of library and collection-making tools and tech for personal projects and research.
A LibLab will be a space for librarians and other community members to learn about new tools, to develop personalized workspaces, and to run classes and workshops for others. It will include physical tools such as cameras and scanners and computers, and software tools for research, classification, publication and remixing.
We will develop a prototype lab in DC, colocated with a local university or tech incubator, with testing and feedback from public and university librarians in the area.
This sounds like a pretty ambitious venture, requiring a fair amount of investment in space and hardware, etc. Do you have any ideas on where that could come from. I'm definitely interested in the idea. So please send more details when they become available!
I believe the getting of money is being handled with a partner institution. Should Samuel win the grant, we would receive custody of the money and be responsible for executing the plan. If I am not mistaken.
//Ed
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