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.