Hi Code4lib,

Over on his One Big Library blog, Dan Chudnov had a list of conferences 
he liked to attend 
(http://onebiglibrary.net/story/conferences-id-like-to-attend). One of 
them, was the idea of a PowerlessCamp. Dan defined a PowerlessCamp as 
having "no power. no lights, no laptops, no projectors. no wifi, no 
video or audio recording or amplification. Held outside maybe, in 
daylight. Maybe with some picnic benches. "

I think it is a brilliant idea and that way too many people, including 
me, rely on electricity and technology to get things done at conferences 
and while I understand why, I think the idea of a PowerlessCamp is great.

I think that doing something like this one weekend during the summer 
would be great. I can see it done at a campground that offers group 
sites. People could come and camp (or just for the day). Other 
activities such as canoing or hiking could be easily arranged. Since a 
camp ground is cheaper then a hotel, it wouldn’t be relatively cheap to 
attend (once you got there, anyway).

I’m not sure where you would hold it. I’m thinking it would be tough to 
do it at a campground that is close to a major airport so people would 
probably need to drive/carpool. Because of this, turnout would probably 
be best if it was within a 5 or 6 hour drive of major population areas. 
If Code4Lib was going to get involved with something like this, that 
would most likely mean somewhere in the northeast since we have major 
populations of Code4Libers in DC, Philly, New York, Eastern Canada and 
other locations throughout the northeast US - maybe in Pennsylvania or 
New York? Anyway, I’m wondering how much interest there is in this. With 
this in mind, I created a Web site (actually a blog) at 
http://powerlesscamp.org/ for people to comment on if they wish. If I 
get enough interest, I'll expand the site to include a wiki and more.

So, here is my very loose proposal off the top of my head (copied from 
my blog): .

1. We have the first PowerlessCamp over a weekend during Summer 2009
2. It be roughly organized around the same topics as Code4Lib (software, 
mostly open source, for libraries)
3. It be located at a campground somewhere in the northeast.
4. The location should be somewhere that offers a variety of outdoor 
activities so we can do stuff besides the conference. Activities could 
include tubing, canoing, rafting, hiking, mountain biking, drinking beer.
5. Cell phones are allowed for emergency use only
6. Anyone who takes out a laptop will have it thrown in the camp fire :-)
7. I am a little unsure about how to do formal proposals, but I think we 
should have some form of proposal system though. My guess is the 
conference will be small enough that everyone that wants will get a 
chance to talk. We just have to figure out the schedule in advance so we 
know how much time to allot to everyone

Schedule wise, I’m thinking the conference “sessions” part would be on a 
Saturday, maybe starting around 11 AM or noon and going until about 6:00 
or 7:00 PM when we start up the grills and campfire and open up a beer 
or two. We can make arrangements for group outdoor activities on Friday 
and Sunday. With maybe the first of us to arrive on Thursday evening and 
the last of us leaving Monday morning. Obviously, even though the 
conference in this scenario would only be on Saturday, a bunch of 
library geeks hanging out together won’t be able to last long without 
talking about geeky stuff, so the whole event would be educational.

What do you all think? If you are interested in the concept, either 
e-mail or post something to the blog. I'm not sold on any wedded ideas 
above, besides that doing this at some point would be great so please 
share your ideas on how you think it would be good to organize such an 
event. I'm not expecting 200 people to show up, but if we could get 
10-20 people to come out and support it, I'd be thrilled.

Edward