Proud to Partner with Cycling for Libraries 2015
Jinfo Blog

By Robin Neidorf

Abstract

FreePint is proud to sponsor the 2015 Cycling for Libraries event. Discussions and networking around the changing activities of libraries in a fresh new setting, the New Nordic tour, September 2015.

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The more I've worked with information professionals, the more dumbfounded I am by the gap between what most people think "information work" is about and the reality. I have a hard time imagining a field more innovative, more engaging and requiring more diverse areas of knowledge than the information world today.

I think one of the reasons I have been so drawn to the Cycling for Libraries annual conference is that it represents the best of what I know about information work: creativity, forward momentum (literally), and challenging assumptions about information professionals while raising their profile in a unique way.

I first learned of Cycling for Libraries in 2013, when FreePint contributor Barbara Fullerton told me she was joining a cycling trip from Brussels to Amsterdam, participating in conference events and presentations along the way. We were attending another industry conference at the time, and what she described sounded the perfect antidote to the earnest but not terribly engaging panels and presentations we were experiencing in windowless conference rooms, missing the gorgeous summer weather outside.

When the Cycling for Libraries 2015 trip was announced late last year, I immediately got in touch with the organisers and volunteered FreePint as a media partner.

Environmental Consciousness and Physical Fitness Combine around Dissemination and Sharing of Knowledge

The event's factsheet shares the following mission and focus:

"The Cycling for Libraries event is combined with environmental consciousness on the one hand and on the other to maintain physical fitness as one of the cornerstones of professional wellbeing. Discussions focus on the suitability of the prevailing library concept in a society where the electronic dissemination of information and sharing of knowledge are bound to change the basic idea of the activities of libraries."

This fifth year of the event will take around 100 participants on a 10-day trip from Oslo to Aarhus. Participation options include the full event, half the event, or one-day registrations; timing at the start of September enables participants to connect the end of the trip with the start of the Next Library conference in Aarhus, starting 12th September.

The programme for Cycling for Libraries 2015 is still in development, and we'll share more information as it becomes available. In the meantime, you can get a taste for the experience and benefits of this adventure by reading the commentary by Ann-Christin Karlen, a law librarian from Gothenburg, Sweden, a member of the organising committee and enthusiastic participant.

We at FreePint are training. Join us. See you in Oslo.

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