response below
On March 6, 2012 at 12:56 PM "Felix Schürholz" <[email protected]> wrote: > link to article: http://bit.ly/zEArzC > > Article without links: > > I like to pick up the great ideas of Phil Shapiro (PC World) and SELC > (Policies for a Shareable City #13: Public Libraries). Phil Shapiro > suggests a very interesting “Free Coworking” model for public > libraries which the SELC supports: > > “Do you work as a computer programmer, writer, editor, animator, or > graphic designer? Would you like a free desk to do work at your public > library? What’s the catch? The catch is that you need to contribute 10 > or 20 percent of your time to serving the public in some way. You can > either set aside time to answering the public’s questions or teach > classes or work on public-oriented digital projects of various kinds. > You might also mentor a youth or an adult. You might want to cowork at > the public library just three days per week, in which case you need to > contribute just 10 percent of your coworking time. If you cowork at > the public library five days a week, you would need to contribute 20 > percent of your time.” > > What do you think, how do you like this model? Anyone know of any > libraries where this system is already in operation? If yes, please > add to the “Free Coworking Directory“. If not, please talk to your > local library! For more information on “Free Coworking”, please refer > to our resource page. > Essentially I think this is brilliant, even if it competes with my dream. ;) But I quibble with the percentage bit. No need to change from 10 to 20 just because the coworker puts in more hours. 10% of 3 days' work would typically be 2.4 hours; 10% of 5 days' work would be 4 hours so the coworker has definitely contributed more. And the odds are that if I only need to go there 3 days a week, I may well have more free time than the person going 5. Other than that minor disagreement, I like the library sharing idea overall. There would be other issues such as capacity (a big issue in my howmtown, where citizens battled over our library size and location), noise, etc but nothing insurmountable I don't think. Randall (Randy) Arnold Developer and Enthusiast Advocate http://texrat.net +18177396806 -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Coworking" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/coworking?hl=en.
