There are advantages and disadvantages of having a loose-y, goose-y community like code4lib. This conversation has surfaced some of the disadvantages. One of the advantages is that there is no need to come to consensus for a group of interested people to harness their collective energy and enthusiasm and explore new options.
In other words, those of you who are interested in engaging and securing a fiduciary agent for annual national conferences should know that you are empowered to do so without a "blessing" from anyone! Sometimes it takes a concrete proposal to win people over -- and sometimes, people won't be won over at all. -- Michael J. Giarlo Technical Manager, Hydra-in-a-Box project Software Architect, Digital Library Systems & Services Stanford University Libraries mjgia...@stanford.edu +1 (206) 402-4473 ________________________________________ From: Code for Libraries <CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU> on behalf of Tom Johnson <johnson.tom+code4...@gmail.com> Sent: Friday, June 10, 2016 08:38 To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Formalizing Code4Lib? [diy] Eric, I appreciate that you're trying to make a call to action, but this latest email is stunningly condescending. As I'm sure you must know, people in this community do hold regional meetings. These meetings take substantial effort to arrange. The wiki is full of documentation, advice, and lessons learned the hard way by the many people who have done this work over the years. The result has been a vibrant community which has had an important influence on technology practice in libraries and played a key role in establishing the careers of some of the most talented people working in this field. I can't see why you would want to erase that in favor of a 12-step guide to holding a meetup that you dashed together for an email. We can debate the merits of holding a national conference, but let's not begin that debate by pretending that the regional meetups are so easy to hold that they just happen like magic. They don't, and they never have. - Tom On Fri, Jun 10, 2016 at 12:50 AM, Eric Lease Morgan <emor...@nd.edu> wrote: > On Jun 9, 2016, at 7:55 PM, Coral Sheldon-Hess <co...@sheldon-hess.org> > wrote: > > > One note about what we're discussing: when we talk about just doing the > > regional events (and I mean beyond 2017, which will be a special case if > a > > host city can't step in), we need to realize that we have a lot of > members > > who aren't in a Code4Lib region. > > > > You might think I'm talking about Alaska, because that's where I lived > when > > I first came to a Code4Lib conference. And that's certainly one place, > > along with Hawaii, that would be left out. > > > > But even living in Pittsburgh, I'm not in a Code4Lib region, that I can > > tell. Pittsburgh isn't in the midwest, and we also aren't part of the > > tri-state region that Philly's in. I'm employed (part-time/remote) in the > > DC/MD region, so if I can afford the drive and hotel, that's probably the > > one I'd pick right now. I guess? > > > > So, even landlocked in the continental US, it's possible not to have a > > region. > > > > More importantly, though: my understanding is that our international > > members are fairly spread out -- maybe Code4Lib Japan being an exception? > > -- so, even ignoring weird cases like Pittsburgh, we stand to lose some > > really fantastic contributors to our community if we drop to > regional-only. > > > > Just something else to consider. > > - Coral > > > Interesting. Consider searching one or more of the existing Code4Lib > mailing list archives for things Pittsburg: > > * https://www.mail-archive.com/code4lib@listserv.nd.edu/ > * http://serials.infomotions.com/code4lib/ > * https://listserv.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=CODE4LIB > > I’d be willing to be you can identify six or seven Code4Lib’ers in the > results. You could then suggest a “meet-up”, a get together over lunch, or > to have them visit you in your space or a near-by public library. Even if > there are only three of you, then things will get started, and it will grow > from there. I promise. —Eric Morgan >
