THATCamp MLA "Unconference" Diary

More than 50 attendees turned out for last week's THATCamp "unconference" following MLA's annual conference in Denver. Sandy Rodriguez of University of Missouri - Kansas City contributed this post on her experience.

This past Sunday, a group of exhausted but eager music librarians participated in the Music Library Association's post-conference THATCamp (The Humanities and Technology Camp), sponsored by the University of Colorado Libraries, the University of Denver Libraries, and various subgroups of MLA. The Schwayder Art Building's C-Cubed Studios (DU) proved an 

ideal space for a technology "unconference" with the requisite tech setup in the enclosed rooms branching off of a large open space containing modular furniture for reconfiguration as needed.

The pre-planned workshops were: Writing and applying for National Endowment for the Humanities grants (Jesse Johnston), Introduction to Omeka (Anna Kijas), Introduction to Linked Data (Stephen Davison), and Introduction to Thematic Catalogs in the Music Encoding Initiative (MEI) (Matthew Vest). The other breakout workshops voted on first thing in the morning spanned demonstrations on the use of specific tools to broad discussions on digital humanities and distance education approaches.

Not only had I never attended a THATCamp before, but I was a total newbie to the "unconference" experience. What would normally seem haphazard to someone used to pre-planning as much as possible turned out to be an information-rich, insightful, and extraordinary experience. It quickly became clear that an incredible amount of planning had gone into this event, and the spontaneity aspect contributed to its casual, interactive, and conversational nature ultimately resulting in some thoughtful discussion and productive learning. So I just needed to chill out. And I did…and it was awesome.

I proposed a session on OpenRefine where we walked through some of the tool's features (data cleanup, transformation, reconciliation, etc.) and how we might use them for the work we’re doing at our respective institutions. Immediately after, I changed my plans to attend a pre-planned workshop because I was intrigued to learn about something I had never even heard of before – webscraping. And it kind of blew my mind. Although I've attended many Linked Data sessions and workshops in the past, I decided to participate in Stephen Davison's (UCLA) Linked Data workshop in the afternoon, and I’m so glad I did. Stephen's presentation was well-organized, the demonstrations were effective, and the discussions were surprising and deeply thoughtful. Furthermore, his workshop notes are so well-ordered and informative that I plan on referring to them in the future.

All in all, MLA's THATCamp experience was one of the most valuable learning experiences I've had in a while, and judging from my conversations with other participants, I’m not the only one that felt that way. Not only did I grow my knowledgebase in areas I had some grounding in, but I learned about something I had never even heard of before and engaged in enlightening conversations with some brilliant people that left me energized despite the post-conference exhaustion. Oh, the possibilities! And who wouldn't want more of that? THATCamp IAML-NYC, anyone?

(Thanks to the THATCamp MLA sponsors and kudos to Anna Kijas for leading us all!)
Photos courtesy Jonathan Manton, Stanford University

Website: THATCamp MLA
Workshop and Session Notes: http://bit.ly/1ETAbV3

More photos courtesy Anna Kijas on Flickr