Announcing a Series of Radical Conversations

The announcement of the Radical’ Guide to New Librarianship has prompted a lot of interest, including folks asking how they can help. Well, here you go. We need your input, stories, and ideas.

There are several new topics we’re working on for The Radical’s Guide: notably libraries as institutions, the role of collections, and a deeper understanding of the concept of community. We are seeking input from the library community on these topics. To facilitate this input, we’ve set up a series of online and in-person conversations. Each question consists of a brief introduction to the topic and mechanisms for community input.

Here is the link to the conversations with more information on the questions:

https://davidlankes.org/?page_id=6461

As you will see rather than just posting a bunch of questions, we’ve structured them in topic and time. So we’ll be rolling the questions out over the next two months concluding in an in-person gathering at the ALA MidWinter Conference in Chicago. Here is the schedule:

How Do We Define a Library?

Dates: December 8-12, 2014

What is the Role of Fiction and Storytelling in Knowledge Development

Dates: December 15-19, 2014

What is The Value of a Collection?

Dates: January 5-9, 2015

What is the Definition of a Community?

Dates: January 12-16, 2015

Community Gathering at ALA MidWinter

Date: February 2, 2015

Please (please please please) join the conversation on the web and through Twitter. If you see a future conversation you’d like to join me for a Skype conversation starter, please let me know [email protected].

Also, please let us know if you are interested in attending the MidWinter session:

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