Dear DCmedians,
I had the pleasure of attending the wiki society meeting last night - a very well run meeting, something you should be proud of.
I mentioned the idea of a 'librarylab' which was warmly received at the DPLA conference today, 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 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. I will elaborate on it online after getting some more initial feedback from would-be users. I will also send further notes on yesterday's meeting this weekend, since this will not be the last such meeting held in DC and ther eare many overlaps with wikimedia's mission.
Thanks to everyone who came out to dinner; it was lovely. [and brainstorming about wikimania is always fun!]
SJ
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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.