SCHEDULE: For early birds: Dinner, tour, lunch, video -- and a chance to consume, and create, media relevant to "Beyond Books"
Bill Densmore
To participants in "Beyond Books: News, Literacy, Democracy and America's
Libraries:
Some of you participating from afar in "Beyond Books," will be arriving on
Tuesday night, or early in the day on Wednesday, April 6. Here are five
suggestions for pre-convening networking, collaboration and just-plain
socializing.
TUESDAY DINNER
===============
We've made a dinner reservation for 7 p.m. on Tuesday at Legal Seafoods, 5
Cambridge Center (at Main Street), in Kendall Square, Cambridge, right
next to our conference hotels. You need to eat, and Legal Seafoods has a
40-year history of award-winning cuisine which began in Cambridge and is
now throughout the northeast. This is "Dutch treat" -- ask for your own
check or share equally in the table's bill. If you want to join us, please
email me -- dens...@mediagiraffe.org to let me know. That will allow us
to give the restaurant an accurate head count.
Then please show up! The table is in the name "densmore." See:
http://www.legalseafoods.com/Restaurants/Cambridge-Kendall-Square
WEDNESDAY 10 A.M.
==================
At 10 a.m. on Wednesday, optionally gather in the lobby of the Kendall
Hotel. After some socializing, and perhaps coffee nearby, we'll connect up
with the regular weekday 11 a.m. tour of the MIT campus, conducted by MIT
guides. The campus tours depart from the Building 7 Lobby, located at 77
Massachusetts Avenue, and generally last 75-90 minutes. For general campus
tour Information please call(617) 253-4795, Monday-Friday, 9:00 a.m.-5
p.m. Or see: http://web.mit.edu/infocenter/campustours.html . . . if you
don't join us at 11 a.m. for the regularly scheduled daily campus tour,
you can also take a self-guided tour:
http://web.mit.edu/infocenter/privategrouptour/Visitor%20Code%20of%20Courtesy.pdf
. . . you might also consider visiting the MIT Museum . . .
http://web.mit.edu/museum/visit/index.html . . . finally, Harvard Square
is a short, two-stop subway ride on the subway "Red Line" from Kendall
Square -- allow perhaps a half hour in each direction for travel time
assuming you just miss one subway and have to wait for the next one.
Here's the MIT campus map by the way: http://whereis.mit.edu/
WEDNESDAY NOON
===============
Starting at noon, you can pick up your name tag at the MIT Media Center
buildling (Building E-15/Weisner Building) lower lobby, entered by
stepping down slighty from street level off of Ames Street. We probably
won't have all of the welcome materials stuffed together by then but you
can at least say hello, see who else is around early, and get any
last-minute intelligence on our gathering.
WEDNESDAY 1 P.M.
=================
If you're looking for a place to have lunch on Wednesday, try the "Forbes
Family Cafe," inside Stata Center for Computer Information and
Intelligence and about two blocks from where we are convening at the MIT
Media Lab building. It's a really dandy cafeteria that seats over 200
people and is open to the public. The Forbes posts its menu -- which
changes weekly -- here: http://dining.mit.edu/venues-menus/forbes . . . it
will be a crowded place at this time but we'll see if we can corral a
couple of tables and self-identify the "Beyond Books" crowd. Check the
#biblionews Twitter hash and stream for updates. The Stata Center is
Building 32 on campus -- click on "food" link on the campus map:
http://whereis.mit.edu/ and look for the "T" pin. You can also see
Building E-15 -- the Media Center -- where we're meeting -- is just a
couple of blocks away.
WEDNESDAY 2 P.M.
==================
At 2 p.m., join us in the Bartos Theatre of the Media Lab Building
(Building E-15 / Weisner Center) for a special screening of Peter Shane's
"Information Stories." Shane, an Ohio State law professor and executive
director of the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities,
teamed with filmmaker Liv Gjestvang and Ohio State to produce a 49-minute
DVD video. It includes 12 stories of remarkable Americans using new
technology -- and real-world engagement -- to make a difference in their
community information ecosystem. All the stories are available on YouTube,
and you can learn more about Shane's project at:
http://www.informationstories.org. But seeing them all at once in full
resolution is a treat. If there's enough interest, we'll run the DVD
again at 3 p.m. -- with a brief discussion in between. There are many
ideas and innovations at work in this video that will inform our
discussions.
WEDNESDAY 3 P.M.
=================
At 3 p.m., you have an opportunity to call your own briefing. There are a
half dozen or more folks participating in "Beyond Books" who have
transformational projects underway or in the works. If that's you --
please feel free to use the period from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. to use a corner
of our meeting space -- or the Bartos Theater -- to talk about what you're
doing. Please email j...@journalismthatmatters.org with a little
description of what you'll be showing or telling, and we'll email it to
the group and post it to the Beyond Books website. This is informal
networking time -- start the conversations! For example, Melody Ng and
Linda Fantin will be offering a briefing on the Public Insight Network.
At 4 p.m., we're in session!
-- -------------------------------------
Bill Densmore co-convenor, Journalism That Matters
director, Media Giraffe Project at UMass Amherst
CELL: 413-458-8001
dens...@journ.umass.edu
"BEYOND BOOKS: News, literacy, democracy and America's Libraries"
Assessing the common mission of journalists and librarians
April 6-7, 2011 / MIT Center for Future Civic Media
REGISTER NOW: http://www.biblionews.org