Maker Faire 2008 by Flickr user r3v || cls. This photo has a by-sa Creative Commons license.

The program (link to PDF) shows a mix of big-deal events–e.g., ArcAttack’s Musical Tesla Coil, the Ring of Fire, King of Fling Catapult Contest and so on–and smaller, hands-on booths and exhibits–such as DIY electronics, Swap-O-Rama-Rama, and Green How-To Activities. As I read over the program I started to think less about how much I wished I could go and more about “why can’t we have a library ‘conference’ that’s more like this?”

Imagine showing up for a Library Faire (we probably couldn’t actually call it that given the whole O’Reilly “Web 2.0” trademark thing a few years back, but bear with me) and instead of sitting in sessions or chatting up vendors while scouting out the best schwag, you’d sit down in a booth or workshop with other librarians and create something that you could bring home. You wouldn’t just hear how a group of librarians did something at their library, you’d have those people teaching you how to do it, and you would leave with the project already underway for your library. The emphasis would be on people teaching each other in small groups and on people leaving not just with notes and handouts, but with something that they’d begun to make, whether it was a new web page, a new approach to teaching, or the start of a new PR campaign. I’m picturing something like a poster sessions come to life–not “look at what we did,” but “let me show you how to do this right now.”

It might be harder to find equivalents for the big-deal parts; what do libraries have that plays to a crowd besides book truck drill teams? A big tent for the “gaming in libraries” folks to go nuts in would also be a natural. But maybe the big stuff wouldn’t be that important. Maybe the idea of a day of hands-on activities would be enough.

While still at Internet Librarian, I floated a sketchier version of this idea on FriendFeed and the response was heartening. Some of the comments make me think that we aren’t all on the same page, but that’s not a bad thing at this point, when we are just kicking around a new-ish idea. Of course, I’d love to hear more ideas in the comments on this post.