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Along with 174 other library people, I found myself in Birmingham at Library Camp UK last weekend.
I wasn’t really sure what to expect from a library “unconference”. I’d heard about the format before but there’s a difference between hearing vague stories about something and actually taking part in it.
I was thoroughly impressed in every way.
First off, I think the choice of location was great. There are librarians that I’ve been talking to on Twitter for as long as two years, but that I’d never actually met in person because they’re not in the South East and therefore not at London events. I think we need to have more events somewhere in the middle of the country so that people from everywhere have a chance to get to them. Also, the fact that it was a Saturday may have helped.
Secondly, the thing that everyone will tell you about: THE CAKE. It seems like everyone and their sister had baked something or other for the event. As a wheat-free person, I pretty much expected not to be able to eat anything, but the amount of, shall we call it “accessible cake” alone was astonishing (and enough to keep me going through the day—sorry, did someone say lunch?)
As for the actual sessions, the principle “pitch a session once you get there, then make a timetable” worked surprisingly well. Basically, the whole thing worked as a self-organising conference. And the sessions were about dialogue and sharing what we do rather than, as is often the case in traditional conferences, just venues for one person to stand on a stage and the rest being listeners. And there was ample time to relax and have some down time as well—there was a “poet-in-residence” who provided a little island of relaxed conversation (and free hugs). I could have done without the “introductions” from 175 people at the start though, and maybe we could have pitched the morning sessions in the morning and the afternoon sessions after/during lunch? Also, we were given these paper cutouts shape like feet, to write on why we were there, but it was’t clear what the point of them was. Same with the “evaluation wall” that appeared at the end—what was that all about?
Jo Alcock’s session on transliteracy was probably most relevant to my personal interests and my job at the moment. The transition between FE and HE is not easy and one thing that I took away from this session is that both universities and FE institutions/Sixth Forms could do much more to collaborate and make that transition easier for the students involved. Most people in the session were FE or school librarians, which was really interesting for me personally because I haven’t had much interaction from people from that sector at all.
Provision of library services to non-native speakers of English was a tiny, but very rewarding session with a public librarian from an ethnically diverse community and an International School librarian. Not only do they have exciting jobs, they were also willing to share their experience, asking for people’s ideas and thoughts in a very informal way.
In the lunch break, after inhaling a sandwich, I let myself be immortalised by Gaz Johnson and his WeaselEveryDay project. You can see myself, Katie from Girl in the Moon, and Sarah Nicholas braving the Weasel’s questions on libraries here, here, here, and here!
As for the afternoon sessions, I’m sure they were great—I sat in on part of one on Open Source library management software—but there seemed to be a Knitcamp/Crochetcamp forming. Which sounds like skiving, but in fact, it was an opportunity to have some nice in-depth conversations with fellow new professionals. I also found it amusing that I had to go all the way to Birmingham to meet a libarian who lives in the same town as I, and there was a spontaneous tweetup on the train to round off the day. I’m a bit gutted because I completely forgot to take pictures, but if you have a look around, you’ll see that other people took plenty! All in all, it was a successful day, and I feel like I learned and took away a lot.
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