[Koha] KohaCon11 : Call for Papers

[Koustubha Kale]

On Sun, Mar 13, 2011 at 6:11 AM, Joann Ransom <jransom at library.org.nz> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I wonder if anyone has a gut feeling on the possible 'size' and audience for
> KohaCon11 in terms of numbers, interest and ability levels etc?
>
> Getting 100, 300, 500 or 1000 attendees participants will impact on the
> speakers programme. For instance with 200 participants we could opt for 1 or
> 2 streams of papers, but 500 or 1000 attendees could open up the possiblilty
> of 4 - 5 streams. This could also mean different approaches. For instance
> some quite specific or focussed papers could be delivered as well as some
> high level. One stream could be high level, general, overview for newcomers
> and decision makers/influencers, another stream could be focussed towards
> librarians using it day in and day out, another at system administrators
> (just for example).
>
> I ask this because it affects what kind of abstract to put together. Any
> thoughts?
>
> Cheers Jo.
>

Hi Jo,
Its difficult to estimate so early.

As I see it, the purpose of Kohacon is twofold. Its for the community
to meet, get to know each other, decide on future direction of the
project etc. At the same time it is also to promote Koha in the region
where its held.

Apart from the usual Koha papers about features, development, perl,
etc, one thing we can plan for is a stream for library science
students. VPM, Thane runs BLIB and MLIB courses under the aegis of
University of Mumbai, as do several colleges in the region. This is a
fairly large number of students.

Another stream I am quite keen on is for librarians new to Koha. This
stream could be sub divided into "Installation, Set-up, Running Koha"
& a second sub-stream addressing queries / difficulties faced by
librarians using Koha may be through interactive sessions.

Through its Granthalaya.org project VPM, Thane has enabled many Public
Libraries to computerize their catalouges and operations using Koha.
We will keep doing this for more and more libraries. The Public
Libraries in India face unique challenges and have unique requirements
in some ares such as accounting, reporting etc. I would love to see a
interactive session between experienced librarians running Koha for
many years and this set of librarians from Indian public libraries (
with some experience developers also sitting in the discussion panel
to understand how Koha could be further develpoed to address the
unique needs of these Indian public libraries )

One more idea I have in mind, is for a development stream for aspiring
Koha developers from around the world. Or perhaps this could be
addressed as a separate stream of the Hackfest as suggested by Paul.

These are just some Ideas. Its for the community to decide.

If we could reach an agreement on the kind of streams like the above
suggested and some people volunteering to conduct these streams,
contribute papers, sit in on discussion panels etc, we could promote
the streams to the interest groups mentioned above. It will also help
us in ground organization like additional halls / rooms etc.

PS : posting this to koha-devel so see if we can spark some interest
in my ramblings above ;)

Regards,
Koustubha Kale
Anant Corporation

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