Austin Meeting

Information and logistical information for the August invite-only stakeholder meeting.

What: Partners Organizing Meeting

Where: University of Texas at Austin School of Information. 1616 Guadalupe St, Suite #5.202
Austin, Texas 78701-1213

When: August 10 and 11, 2023

Preferred Hotel: Hampton Inn & Suites Austin @ The University 1701 Lavaca St, Austin, TX 78701

You are invited to a two-day convening August 10th and 11th in Austin, Texas to finalize plans for the Collaborative Institute for Rural Communities & Librarianship (CIRCL). As an important stakeholder we are looking forward to your ideas and input on shaping an institute that can amplify all of our good work. The goal is a distributed institute that we all share.

We’ll be discussing mission, services, scope, and a participatory research agenda for CIRCL. We’ll also be working on funding and business models for the institute. The overall goal will be determining specific actions needed to officially launch CIRCL.

For those unable to make the event in person, we will have Zoom access for participation.

Below is a preliminary agenda. While the items will be redefined, we will keep to the timing.

Preliminary Agenda

Day One 10am-8pm

Welcome, the Situation, Meeting Agenda
Settling on a Vision
Are these the right 5 functions:

  • Builds a peer learning network of rural libraries for mentoring, advocacy, and innovation
  • Direct supports rural libraries through cooperative IT and administrative support
  • Conducts participatory action research on the issue of rural library capacity building
  • Provides professional development and certification in rural librarianship
  • Facilitates cross-border discussions on commonalities and differences in rural contexts

Lunch
Mapping what already exists
Day 1 Recap
Dinner Together

Day Two 9am-3pm

Grants, business model, and budgets
Lunch
Who do we need at the table
Summary and Next Steps
Optional Evening Activity

The event will be hosted and supported by the University of Texas at Austin, The Virginia & Charles Bowden Professorship, and the Mary R. Boyvey Chair for Excellence at the University of Texas at Austin.