One thought:

Most of the activities listed here are somewhat work-like; they are efforts to bolster or support other programs or organizations rather than enrich the lives of participants.

Partnering with a public library means, at least in my mind, that you'll be working with the public to accomplish some if not all of these listed tasks.

There's a great opportunity to frame some of these activities as experiential learning opportunities, civic engagement, and co-creative processes in which patrons work with LibLab staff or volunteers to enrich their own lives through knowledge.

Nate

On Thu, Jul 7, 2011 at 10:07 AM, Samuel Klein <meta.sj@gmail.com> wrote:

Dear all,

A quick update on the LibLab project follows. For more detail, see
(and edit!) our no-longer-stubby project page:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/LibLabs#July_update

SJ

== I. Location update, DCPL contacts ==

Katie and I just had a helpful call with Ginnie Cooper, head of the
DCPL, and some of her technical and programs staff.
Nate, thank you for making that *excellent* introduction; the whole
team struck me as efficient, inspired by their work, and deeply
knowledgable about the local community and history. I would be
thrilled to work with them.

They are looking into potential spaces for a lab, and have some ideas;
one option would be prominently in the main library, which is right on
the Metro. Volunteers are needed to man the lab make this happen; see
below.

I am still interested in hearing about other possible liblab spaces,
in DC or elsewhere -- we will want a list of interested future labs to
submit with the final results in September.

== II. Timeline ==

Next steps: if someone is interested in taking a lead on the design
work, a design meeting this month would be helpful.
And we could start planning now for a 1- or 2-day hacking session with
wikimedians and the library -- perhaps in line with the recent talk
about having a national followup to the Wiknic, with libraries. :-)

== III. Volunteers needed ==

WE NEED: tech / teacher / organizer volunteers! Available afternoons
every day of the week.

== IV. Design research needed ==

We are also looking for someone to lead the work on design options for
the space. If you know interested architects or designers, please get
them involved.

Examples:

[1] http://youmediachicago.org/10-philosophy/pages/37-youmedia-layout
[2] https://as220.org/labs/blog/2008/09/announcing-the-providence-fab.html

== V. use cases for a lab ==

Please share your own use cases on the wiki. I'd like to have 100 use
cases, with example projects, by the end of the month. This more than
anything helps line up partners because they understand what sort of
desire there is among knowledge-lovers to *do* collection, curation,
classification, digitization, and publishing work.

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Nate Hill
nathanielhill@gmail.com
http://www.natehill.net