There are advantages and disadvantages of having a loose-y, goose-y community like code4lib. This conversation has surfaced some of the disadvantages. One of the advantages is that there is no need to come to consensus for a group of interested people to harness their collective energy and enthusiasm and explore new options.

In other words, those of you who are interested in engaging and securing a fiduciary agent for annual national conferences should know that you are empowered to do so without a "blessing" from anyone! Sometimes it takes a concrete proposal to win people over -- and sometimes, people won't be won over at all.

--
Michael J. Giarlo
Technical Manager, Hydra-in-a-Box project
Software Architect, Digital Library Systems & Services
Stanford University Libraries
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+1 (206) 402-4473

________________________________________
From: Code for Libraries <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Tom Johnson <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, June 10, 2016 08:38
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Formalizing Code4Lib? [diy]

Eric,

I appreciate that you're trying to make a call to action, but this latest
email is stunningly condescending.

As I'm sure you must know, people in this community do hold regional
meetings. These meetings take substantial effort to arrange. The wiki is
full of documentation, advice, and lessons learned the hard way by the many
people who have done this work over the years.

The result has been a vibrant community which has had an important
influence on technology practice in libraries and played a key role in
establishing the careers of some of the most talented people working in
this field. I can't see why you would want to erase that in favor of a
12-step guide to holding a meetup that you dashed together for an email.

We can debate the merits of holding a national conference, but let's not
begin that debate by pretending that the regional meetups are so easy to
hold that they just happen like magic. They don't, and they never have.

- Tom

On Fri, Jun 10, 2016 at 12:50 AM, Eric Lease Morgan <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> On Jun 9, 2016, at 7:55 PM, Coral Sheldon-Hess <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
>
> > One note about what we're discussing: when we talk about just doing the
> > regional events (and I mean beyond 2017, which will be a special case if
> a
> > host city can't step in), we need to realize that we have a lot of
> members
> > who aren't in a Code4Lib region.
> >
> > You might think I'm talking about Alaska, because that's where I lived
> when
> > I first came to a Code4Lib conference. And that's certainly one place,
> > along with Hawaii, that would be left out.
> >
> > But even living in Pittsburgh, I'm not in a Code4Lib region, that I can
> > tell. Pittsburgh isn't in the midwest, and we also aren't part of the
> > tri-state region that Philly's in. I'm employed (part-time/remote) in the
> > DC/MD region, so if I can afford the drive and hotel, that's probably the
> > one I'd pick right now. I guess?
> >
> > So, even landlocked in the continental US, it's possible not to have a
> > region.
> >
> > More importantly, though: my understanding is that our international
> > members are fairly spread out -- maybe Code4Lib Japan being an exception?
> > -- so, even ignoring weird cases like Pittsburgh, we stand to lose some
> > really fantastic contributors to our community if we drop to
> regional-only.
> >
> > Just something else to consider.
> > - Coral
>
>
> Interesting. Consider searching one or more of the existing Code4Lib
> mailing list archives for things Pittsburg:
>
>   * [log in to unmask]" target="_blank">https:[log in to unmask]
>   * http://serials.infomotions.com/code4lib/
>   * https://listserv.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=CODE4LIB
>
> I’d be willing to be you can identify six or seven Code4Lib’ers in the
> results. You could then suggest a “meet-up”, a get together over lunch, or
> to have them visit you in your space or a near-by public library. Even if
> there are only three of you, then things will get started, and it will grow
> from there. I promise. —Eric Morgan
>