Dear Code4Lib,
We are happy to announce the official 2016 Code4Lib Conference Website!

http://2016.code4lib.org

It's important to note that the wiki is still there, and it will be used 
heavily, particularly by volunteers, documentarians, and organizers of 
the conference.  However, several issues prompted us to create a 
stand-alone conference site, which is focused towards our attendee and 
sponsor audiences.

One reason for the new site is that many people have had difficulty 
finding information on the wiki, exacerbated by the wiki's often slow 
response time and the fact that the wiki and Drupal sites look very 
similar and can lead to confusion.  The wiki is an unconventional for 
the context, and is not optimized for mobile, which is becoming a 
necessity at conferences.

Also, we want to put our best foot forward.  Sponsorships are the main 
way we can keep registration costs to a minimum and offer the best 
possible program.  We felt it was necessary to "level up our window 
display" for approaching new sponsors who may not be familiar with our 
community.

This does not mean that we are shunning collaboration!  The site is a 
work in progress and hosted on GitHub, so we encourage everyone to help 
make it awesome.  If you see something that should be changed or could 
be better, create an issue.[1]  Better yet, read up on how to make a 
pull request and be a rock star![2]

[1] https://github.com/code4lib/2016.code4lib.org/issues
[2] https://github.com/code4lib/2016.code4lib.org/wiki

A few final technical details about this site experiment:

First, basic site styles and colors are built via Less, so these 
templates can be easily re-used for future conferences.  Also, the site 
uses Jekyll and much of the content (currently Speakers, Presentations, 
and Testimonials) is supplied via data files (.yml).  This could be 
extended to sponsors, registered attendees, etc.  So, we recommend 
committees gather structured data, instead of using the wiki, for 
anything they want to post to the site.  Furthermore, structured data 
will also be easier to load into the Diebold-o-matic voting app (do you 
really want to make Chris Beer have to cut and paste data in 2016?!?)! 
If you are on a committee that collects data, the Website Committee will 
be happy to help you set up your forms.

Cheers,
Shaun Ellis, on behalf of
The 2016 Code4Lib Conference Website Committee:

  Charlie Morris (Penn State)
  Junior Tidal (New York City College of Technology)
  Bill McMillin (Pratt Institute)
  Shaun Ellis (Princeton University Library)
  Eric Phetteplace (Cal College of the Arts)
  Sarah Shealy (Greenville (SC) County Public Library)
  Jennifer Colt (Cornell University Library)
  Luke Aeschleman (UNC - Chapel Hill | Health Sciences Library)
  Ryan Wick (OSU)
  ... with thanks to Chad Nelson for his contributions too.


-- 
Shaun Ellis
User Interface Developer, Digital Initiatives
Princeton University Library
609.258.1698