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Hurray for Library Camp!
I had a blast working today at CNY Library Camp.  The event, the first of its kind in the Syracuse area, is known as an "unconference."  Why the "un," you ask?  Well, the format differs from a conference format in that  we aren't inviting a bunch of people in to hear a speaker and sit through a bunch of Powerpoint presentations or workshop activities. Instead, the organizers SurveyMonkeyed a bunch of interested librarians to see what they would like to come together and discuss with their peers across the many fields of librarianship.  Other library unconferences have been held several times in many parts of the globe, from Ann Arbor to Australia (here's a list of 'em).  This whole concept is fantastic for one simple reason I have experienced personally at just about every conference I've attended -- the fact that the networking and discussions during the break were really the best parts of attending, despite the fact that the presentation was often given by a prominent person in the field. 

For this unconference, we discussed the future of libraries.  Everyone who came in got a schedule of rooms slated for discussion sessions on given topics.  These topics were based on attendee interest, as indicated on that survey data.  Amazingly enough, every session drew a crowd -- there were no empty rooms for anything.  We hosts (that is, a bunch of Syracuse iSchool students) broke the ice with a few leading questions, and then (mostly) sat back to hear what these great practitioners in the field had to say about topics from Library 2.0 to leadership and security policies to next-gen cataloging.  I hosted one session, on untapped opportunities, and played scribe for two others -- Leadership: Keeping up, and Public 2.0.  It was amazing to hear how much everyone had to say, and the attendees loved the event.  Of course, different sessions had varying success -- in some, the group had to be kicked out of the room to nip discussion in the bud when time was up, while other sessions had a few uncomfortable silences that made we hosts cringe.  As a whole, though, the event was a smashing success.  I learned so much about everything discussed, from all sorts of different perspectives -- school library system directors, reference librarians, college professors, public librarians, medical librarians, the works.  People drove several hours to attend, and there were probably just under 100 people there.  My only complaint was, as a host/scribe, my topic choices were selected based on staffing needs.  However, the wiki provides a nice summary of what was discussed in every session I could not attend myself. 

Tomorrow, we're holding a more traditional conference session.  Two speakers (one of which was in a few of my sessions today) will get an hour a piece to talk about collection development, and the rest of the day will be for networking and more unconference-style breakout sessions that will cover collection development issues.