The Corporate Librarian

So Steve Lawson posted about the idea of a practical conference around solving people’s coding problems. For people who are comfortable with the notion of coding, but may not have all the chops they need.

You can read his post for more details and some great comments.

Some questions that come to mind, some of which have already been raised

• Better name than code4you?
• Should it be online(and if so using what software, and synchronous, asynchronous or a mix of both)?
• When?
• Free? Fee?
• If offline, where?
• What topics?

Bonus points - check out Dorothea’s post, since she can actually write and has thought about (and done) this stuff before. And there’s a lively discussion on FriendFeed about what should be taught.

Hotel reservations are set up, I just have to bite the bullet now and register for Internet Librarian 2008. I’ll be there Saturday-Tuesday. I do encourage people staying on longer to check out danah boyd’s keynote, as I found her a passionate, engaging and intelligent speaker at the New School in 2007.

Sessions I’m contemplating:

• (Saturday) Either W5 – Integrating RSS Into Your Website or W7 – Practical Project Management
• (Sunday) Either W19 – Open Source CMS for Libraries or W20 – Project Management in Practice or W24 – Knowledge Structure, KM, & Traditional Library Skills
• (Monday) OPENING KEYNOTE — Communities & Communication in a Social & Mobile World and D104 – Practical Guide to a User-Focused Digital Library
• (Tuesday) A201 – Enterprise Trends: Beyond the Simple Intranet and A202 – Finding Corporate Knowledge

Would love to meet other corporate librarians who may or may not exist, maybe brainstorm about presentations for next year.

Corporate librarians who may or may not exist, especially in the mountain states or on the West Coast, should check out the Library Camp of the West. Last I saw, Frontier Airlines prices were looking pretty reasonable. I dither as to whether to go to this or Internet Librarian. If you’re curious how many library camps have happened, someone created a page on LISWiki. Over two years, so not just a passing fad.

My fellow Steve posts about how he, Laura Crossett and Joe Kraus got things off the ground and is looking for advice.

Sadly, my plan to find an Asus Eee PC in Pittsburgh so I could have Internet access all the time during the AIIP conference didn’t work out. And there was only one business Internet terminal in my hotel. Note: the website is getting a remodel, so I’ll fix links as needed.

The conference proper ran from Thursday to Sunday, with pre-conference workshops on Wednesday. There were about 100 attendees, out of 600 or so members, and of the attendees about 20 were first-timers (like me!). Activities included guest speakers, round tables, general and concurrent sessions and open board meetins. There was also a very nice paddleboat cruise on the river, and one night a bunch of us had dinner with people from the local chapter of SLA. Much to my surprise, Tambellini’s deep fried lightly breaded zucchini is actually excellent.

One nice touch is that first-time attendees got a ribbon for their badge and a session to attend, where Debbie Hunt and Cindy Shamel got us talking to each other, practicing networking and developing our elevator pitches.

But you want to know what AIIP is and why you might want to go to the conference. AIIP is an association for people who want to start (or have started, or are considering starting) their own information businesses - research and consulting both. The annual conference costs $395 (not counting hotel and pre-conference workshops, and stipends are available in some cases) if you register early, and membership ranges from $50 (for students) to $500 (for a supporting membership). Full and Associate memberships cost $200. There’s a fair amount of overlap in membership between AIIP, SLA and SCIP.

Depending on your level of membership, you can get a listing for your business in the directory, access to a mentor to help you plan and start your business, access to the mailing list, participation in referral and speaker programs, various awards and stipends, and vendor discounts. You can read the full list here.

At the conference, I got lots of immediately-useful, practical advice from people who are successful independent information professionals, from design issues (business cards, website) to networking to planning service offerings to marketing your business. Not to mention some cool sessions on useful gadgets.

Besides that, I met a lot of people from the Bay Area, which is always a good thing. I’m hoping to go to Debbie Bardon’s next informal get-together in the Oakland hills.

I feel a bit guilty that starting my own business isn’t the first thing I tried after becoming unemployed (AIIP’s membership tracks unemployment), but people are there to give advice and pep talks as needed. If you’re thinking about a solo career, and want advice on the pros and cons beyond what you can read in books, you could do a lot worse than a student or associate membership. If you’ve already got your own business, AIIP can get you promotion, referrals and useful tips.

Next year’s conference is in Albuquerque in late March, hope to be there and to meet new people!

I’m trying to nail down what topics might be suited to a hands-on conference (and after that, I can figure out whether online or in a venue makes more sense). My initial thoughts:

• Installing a wiki
• Adding plugins to a wiki
• Installing either Movable Type or WordPress
• Adding plugins to the above
• Project management

I’m also reviewing Five Weeks To A Social Library to see what lessons I can learn from it. And I need to check out some of the resources on the Online Training Resources page on the Library Success Wiki. I’m a bit worried that I’m reinventing the wheel here.

So, heady with the renown and job offers that came in after Library Camp NYC, I had another idea based on my experiences at Internet Librarian in 2007 (as well as various librarians’ blog posts). A librarian conference consisting solely of workshops - everything from project management to installing a wiki. If there were enough people interested in leading workshops, we might even be able to split the conference into beginner and expert tracks. Heck, maybe even regional conferences, sharing materials and workshop ideas on the Library Success wiki or some other wiki.

What do people think of the idea?

Tom Reamy’s full presentation on folksonomies and tagging from Internet Librarian is available on the KAPS Group website.

I’ve got pushback on it in a few areas, but check it out and see what you think.

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Not all of them by any means, but a chunk are posted online (mostly as PowerPoint slideshows) on the Internet Librarian 2007 site.

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