Part II - See Part I
Thursday's opening keynote by Keir Winesmith was brilliant. In Peak Text: AI and the Golden Age of Libraries and Archives, he demonstrates numerous, positive, useful uses for AI. He did so with a pointed reminder that all the Large Language Models have been trained on the contents of our archives. This has only been possible due to the careful labour of cataloguers, archivists, and librarians from organisations who generously generated and structured the metadata, and then digitised and liberated vast amounts of cultural material from their collections. It was thought provoking and affirming and hopeful. I loved it.
Hugh Rundle confessed how he accidentally became a FOSS maintainer and all he got was this lousy insight into librarianship sharing lessons learned along the way, and how it has impacted his own sense of professional identity. Hugh's insights on expertise, and appreciation for applying skills from one domain to solve challenges in another were particularly sharp. It's just as much about understanding the problems, as it is about knowing the answers. He also posed a new TLA - the Mental Health SPA - Stretch, Purpose, Agency. Great talk.
Stéphane Guillou shared his perspective on A University Library's journey in making technology training resources FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable). This was such a lovely, gentle exploration through the progression of publication practice, from PDFs to something more flexible and dynamic. Stephane introduced us to Quarto Websites which looks super interesting and useful in many different ways.
Milly Schmidt's talk Reclaiming the open web: a story about big tech, platforms and millennial dreams of a connected web took us back to a different time and proposed a pathway forward to escape the bad place we've since found ourselves in. Personal, professional, poignant. This was an exhausting tour de force. Milly wove together her own narrative with many quotes from books to follow up on, and delivered a political call to action for solidarity. She urged us all to "Reject algorithmic recommendations and curate your own taste."
Sam Bishop helped us see deeper into the art, science and philosophy of code maintenance in this lovely talk, and discussion Wabi Sabi Software: Caring for Imperfect Projects in Public - I may have got a bit distracted by learning about Dorodango for the first time, and may have made some mental scribble to give that a go. But also took away sound advice to be more clear, and open about the help we need with the Open Practice Library to make it easier for those who CAN help, to know where their help, will help most!
Joshua Hesketh took us through the practicalities and pitfalls of his epic adventure to degoogle, and back again in My degoogled life - I really like the way he presented this as a spectrum of principle, inconvenience, community and connectedness. Lots to think about, and also accept the cost of the challenge is not the same for everyone. Many parallels with Milly's talk here too.
I could not have been more delighted to hear about The Magic of the Open Practice Library from Elise Elkerton - it's fair to say I did not learn anything new here, but it's also fair to say that Elise told this story better than I ever have, with practical details, and examples, showing the how and why of the magic within, not just unbridled enthusiasm, and assertions. Elise explained how Gabrielle Benefield's mobiusloop provides the structure that makes it all make sense, and shared her own case study of applying practices to her work. So good.