One great thing about Library Camp and unconferences at large is that you not only attend, you contribute. I was surprised and excited to hear on Tuesday evening that I would be presenting on not only one but two topics: Organizing Library Events and Drupal. It was nice to have a heads up so that I knew what I was in for on Wednesday morning, and also nice to know that people had voted and there were certain to be participants interested in each of these sessions.

Organizing Library Events
I felt that I would have something to bring to the table in this discussion through my work with Zine Fests, (un)conferences, Open Houses and the Pratt Events Committee. I was a nervous facilitator since this was the first session of the day, and there was a whole gamut of experienced librarians around the table, but I think that the discussion went pretty well. I think I tried to be a bit too organized about the discussion, and I thought a lot about the very nice way that Jonny was able to lead discussions at the other sessions I attended later. I am always happy to hear about the ways that librarians organize to promote libraries through fun events, and the creative things they think of to get patrons excited. We had a good mix of different academic types of librarians and a few public librarians as well.

One concern everyone seemed to have was that even when you are able to devote your time to developing programming, there doesn't always seem to be an interested and available public that is able to attend. One thing that I didn't mention but I thought about a lot throughout the day at Camp is how difficult it can be to be a student. I know that to get through my undergrad days, I often had to work (many times non-academically; I was a dishwasher and a donation attendant and a retail worker...) as much as I had to study. I wonder just how much students can do that is extra, and especially when it isn't built into requirements or coursework. Faculty I know are under similar pressures. I think this also plays into our discussion later in the day about critical pedagogy and the perception that students just want to get their assignments done without learning a whole lot. I can remember times when I really wanted to do well but also had such a limited schedule that certain tasks would have been impossible. I guess one of the things that I am thinking about lately-is enjoying learning a luxury? One that is based on class? and how can I fit support for this luxury for everyone into how I approach students at the desk and in the classroom? And how do the students at my institution compare to others-are they more or less able to take time for exploration and growth?

Basic Drupal Content Creation
This topic was volunteered by Jenna who couldn't make it to camp, so she asked if Melissa and I could tackle a Drupal showcase via the Radical Reference site. I think the most interesting part of this experience was realizing that even though I am surrounded by Drupal experts often, I have picked up some of the essentials (especially enough to speak about them in front of a group!). Also, creating this very site (alycia.brokenja.ws) did teach me a lot more about the functionality and usability of Drupal more so than using an already-created site like RR has, so I think it was really helpful to our audience to show them both a site that was developed over a long period of time for many different functions and to show them mine, which I described as having been created in one day with help from a techie, and is still a work in progress. We also showed a few other examples (Jenna's site, The Onion), and in the audience, from a group of approximately 20 librarians, roughly 3-4 were in the midst of having their home libraries develop a Drupal site.

It was exciting to have a classroom where everyone got a username and were quickly into the system to poke around. I wish we could have set everyone up a bit quicker, and I feel like we had a lot to cover in one hour, but I think that we were able to show some nuts and bolts. I think it was helpful also for Rad Reffies who may have felt a bit reticent about getting into the system, and again supported my urge to have more hands-on work days for volunteers in the NYC group (and maybe at ALA annual?).

It was nice to stress the ethical importance of Drupal and I think letting everyone know that we would be using the Radical Reference site made it easier to speak to these issues. I was also happy that Melissa was able to quickly and consisely convey Drupal definitions and started us off well and between the two of us we seemed to have complimentary material to share. I also had Matt on Google Chat during the session on a computer that was not being projected, so there was tech support if we needed it. The question "How is Drupal different from a Wiki?" was not one that I had considered, but I think I answered it much in the same way that Matt suggested ("wikis are edited collaboratively with the goal of producing a single document by a process of revision. Drupal manages individual chunks of content that may be of different types with single authors or rarely multiple authors"), and overall it was really nice and exciting to be in a room of librarians who are planning to use this software and were very engaged with learning more about it. Of course we suggested that they all go to the next Drupal Camp to get help with installation :)