[Eg-oversight-board] Outreach Committee and ALA

[Kathy Lussier]

Hi all,

I asked Grace to add an agenda item for today's meeting with a request 
from the Outreach Committee, but I also want to send along this 
long-overdue update on the committee's activities at the last ALA 
conference in San Francisco as well as what we hope to do at this 
conference.

During the last ALA conference, we secured a booth in the vendor hall. 
The MassLNC partners, C/W MARS, MVLC and NOBLE, paid the fee for the 
booth, but we also used community funds to support other expenses, 
including signs, handouts, giveaway pens, LCD monitor rental, and 
electricity. Equinox also donated some of their booth furniture and 
supplies so that we wouldn't have to pay for high rental fees. The total 
cost to the community, then, was $1,200.

At the same time, we set up a page to collect donations for our outreach 
efforts. However, the last time I checked, we had received one donation 
from an individual at $10 per month and another from an organization at 
$1,000. It has been a while since I checked, and other funds may have 
come in since then, but I think it's safe to say donations were low.

I have a more in-depth overview of the booth activities below, but I 
first want to talk about plans for the upcoming ALA in Orlando. Given 
that the previous fundraising didn't bring in enough funds to support 
our initial booth expenditures, particularly when the booth rental was 
already covered and was at a lower cost because we were first-time 
exhibitors, I don't think we can fund a booth unless we find ways to 
bring funds in to support it.

However, we still think it's important for Evergreen to have a presence 
at large conferences, not just to reach out to existing users, but to 
have a space where others in the library world can learn more about our 
great ILS and the vibrant community that surrounds it. The Outreach 
Committee, therefore, would like to request that the Board authorize the 
expenditure of funds to request meeting space at the Orlando conference 
for a program/meeting at the conference. Looking at the information at 
http://www.ala.org/conferencesevents/submissions, the cost of this space 
is $120 for a non-profit organization.

The intended audience for this program would be current Evergreen users 
as well as those who are interested in learning more about Evergreen. It 
will give us a chance to take a look at what's new in the software, what 
we look forward to over the next year, and to answer any questions. We 
should also be listed in the program book, which will give us some 
exposure to conference attendees.


The Outreach group has been on hiatus since the last ALA, but we'll be 
meeting next week to talk more about how we can be visible at 
conferences and to talk about some other ideas to promote Evergreen 
outside of conferences.

I can answer any questions you have at today's meeting. Thanks!


ALA SAN FRANCISCO BOOTH ACTIVITIES OVERVIEW

We had nine people who volunteered to help staff the booth at ALA. We 
tracked the number of conversations we had at the booth, breaking down 
between brief ones where people said hello, but showed little interest 
in Evergreen and extended ones, where people showed genuine interest in 
learning about Evergreen or open source.

Friday brief: 1
Saturday brief : 21
Saturday extended : 19
Sunday brief : 11
Sunday extended : 14
Monday brief : 10
Monday extended : 6

Comments from a couple of the booth volunteers:

> At least during my time there more of the conversation was verbal than 
> tech demo.  I had several interactions with people who were already 
> Evergreen users who weren't familiar with the larger community and 
> didn't know they could join listservs or get on IRC or even that there 
> was a conference.  Those were some of the best interactions I had.

>   I did spend a little bit more time showing basic
> module functionality to a few who asked about it, such as cataloging
> and acquisitions modules.  When people had technical questions, it
> seemed like they were quite technical and detailed, but really doing a
> dedicated demo might not be the best way of advocacy for Evergreen.
> The trick I found with that process is the fine line between helping
> people understand what Evergreen was capable of with a demonstration
> that ended up being followed closely with the next question of "how
> much does this cost?" and "can we buy this from you?" which leads to
> the answer of, well actually we are not vendors per say, we're just
> advocating on behalf of the community of users.

In my own interactions, I talked to a few people from outside the 
country who were primarily interested in Evergreen because they were 
looking at open-source systems. At the same time, I found a lot of my 
interactions more as much about educating people about open source as 
they were about Evergreen.

Kathy


-- 
Kathy Lussier
Project Coordinator
Massachusetts Library Network Cooperative
(508) 343-0128
klussier at masslnc.org
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/kmlussier