The Unconference - Planning the sessions

Australias’ first Unconference was held at at Yarra Plenty Library in Melbourne amd was sponsored by SirsiDynix. It attracted about 100 attendees.Representatives from school, special, public and the State Library of Victoria were all in attendance. The focus being web 2.0 technologies in our libraries. Knowledge of Library 2.0 and web 2.0 ranged from an awareness to expert, but the benefit for all came in the sharing and in the ideas that came from this






As attendees arrived the aroma of freshly brewed coffee from …..coffee cart filled the air, as well as the smell of fresh donuts. Mmm…the day was certainly off to a good start





Facilitated by Anne Hartigan, rules were set down (ie rule of 2 feet – if you don’t like the topic; or aren’t getting much out of it; feel free to leave)

The first item was to set the agenda for the day With paper spread across the floor and markers in hand, attendees put thoughts to paper, expressing ideas about what they would like to discuss for the day. There was certainly no lack of enthusiasm

Ideas were then arranged into a workable agenda for the day.
-Web 2.0 = library 2.0?
-Wikis
-RFID in libraries
-Literary blogging
-Information literacy : overcoming fear
-OPACS and mashups
-Library education
-Young people social networking
-Virtual services universal? /sharing resources
-Second life tour
-Re-engineering reference, IM and virtual reference
-Library 2.0 : 23 things program
-Tagging reader recommendations : creative tools
-Convincing stakeholders of our worth

There were some great conversations, exchanging of ideas, thoughts provoked, inspiration given, new connections made through networking (and old ones reestablished) and so much more.