We're want to run a festival style unconference for library workers over a weekend either in September 2018, or in May 2019 (but not a bank holiday weekend!).
The two most likely dates are: 8th/9th September 2018 OR 18th/19th May 2019. We're currently looking at 3 different venues for the unconference and should be firm in up by the end of this campaign.
This crowdfunding campaign has a few different aims! At a basic level we hope to:
- Gauge levels of interest in attending a library learning festival
- Raise enough money to pay a deposit to hire a workshop room (in case of bad weather) plus outdoor space at a venue with campsite style accommodation. Depending on the venue and date we need between £500 and £1,000 for the deposit!
If we can raise enough money we'll also be able to:
- Subsidise attendance for low paid or under-represented groups of library workers
- Offer bursaries to fund travel / accommodation for under-represented library workers
- Book additional facilities and activities for the library festival
Exact details of this event will depend on the number of people who book... the more people who book, the more variety of activities we can have going on during the camp.
Anyone vaguely associated with libraries is welcome to come along, and we’re hoping family (and pets) will be welcome to (to be confirmed depending on venue!). The event will be self-catering, no food or drink is provided. If enough children and partners come along, we'll investigate extra activities aimed explicitly at children.
At the moment, we expect to start late morning during the Saturday, run a variety of activities during the day. People will be able camp onsite (you need to provide your own kit!) during Saturday night, activities will continue Sunday morning and we'll finish early Sunday afternoon. This timetable will be firmed up as the event gets closer. The ethos of the event will be that everyone has an equal voice, whether a library director, library assistant, or student. It will be a space for people to discuss issues in libraries, in their own practice, and to get some professional development with a difference...
The target ticket price will be £50 (the gold level in this campaign). We also want to make a number of cheap or free tickets available, plus travel bursaries if at all possible, which will depend on this crowdfunding and the actual bookings.
(Fairly) firm activities:
- Open space or unconference style workshops & discussions (whoever turns up can pitch a session).
- Learning games (see / share examples and create your own).
- Analogue "Storify" (we'll create a book of analogue / offline tweets, comments, pictures, etc throughout and share it afterwards).
- Micro-teach tent (plan a short lesson, deliver it, and receive peer-feedback on your session).
- Zine / chapbook making
Anyone coming is free to pitch a session they'd like to run, or suggest activities that we can try to arrange for you. The more people coming, the more sessions we'll have running.
We have a large indoor area whichever venue we book, plus we plan to have at least one large tent outdoors for sessions to be run in.
This crowdfunding campaign will not pay for everything, so it can't be 100% guaranteed that the event will happen - if we don't have enough people book, there is a chance it could be cancelled. If we need to cancel we may lose some or all of the crowdfunding money that will be paid in deposit. Anything we can recover though will be used to run a more traditional library camp, or fund another activity - all backers will be asked to vote on this if it comes to pass.