Islandora Camp CO 2014

The following guest post was written by Islandora Camp Colorado attendee Bryan Brown, who joined us from Florida State University:

Islandora Camp CO was over a week ago now, but I’m still digesting the experience. Having been to several conferences before, I was expecting something similar where a Sage on the Stage lectures about some abstract topic while the audience passively listens (or doesn’t). I was pleasantly surprised at the smaller and more personal atmosphere of iCamp, where we were free to ask questions in the middle of presentations and instructors revised their talks based on what the audience was most interested in. Instead of canned slideshows, Islandora Camp is an interactive experience that could vary wildly depending on who attends. This is because the core theme of Islandora Camp, and maybe even Islandora in general, is community.

From the first day where we all introduced ourselves and how we are using Islandora, I quickly felt like I knew everyone at camp and felt no hesitation to strike up a conversation with others about their work. The conversations I had with other campers about how they are using Islandora stuck with me just as much as the presentations and workshops. I met a lot of interesting developers and administrators who are working on projects similar to my own and came back to Florida with a greatly extended network of fellow Islandorians I could work with to solve shared problems. Instead of treating our Islandora instances like unique snowflakes and solving our problems in a vacuum, we need to come together and discuss these problems as a community so we can create better solutions that help more people.

The future of Islandora is not up to the Islandora Foundation or Discovery Garden, but with Islandora users. If you want Islandora to be better, it’s not enough to sit around and wait for new modules to come out or complain about problems they might have. File bug reports when you find an issue. Volunteer to test modules for new releases. Contribute your patches as a pull request. Join an interest group. There are lots of ways to get involved in the Islandora community, even if you aren’t a developer. Since we are all using the same system, we are all in the same boat. This sense of connectedness might just be the secret sauce that makes iCamp such a great experience.

One of the features of the last few Islandora Camps is the camp t-shirt given to all attendees. Every camp has its own logo. For the past few camps we have reached out to our attendees to design that logo, and we are doing it again for the CO Camp. We want to give a free registration and a couple of extra t-shirts to the iCampCO attendee who comes up with the coolest logo for iCamp's t-shirts.

Entries will be accepted through September 15th, 2014. Entries will be put up on the website for voting and a winner will be selected and announced September 12th, 2014.

Here are the details to enter:

The Rules:

• Camp Registration is not necessary to enter; anyone with an interest in Islandora is welcome to send in a design - however, the big prize is a free registration, so you'll have to be able to come to camp to claim it.
• Line art and text are acceptable; photographs are not.
• You are designing for the front of the shirt for an area up to 12 x 12 inches. Your design must be a single image.
• Your design may be up to four colours. The t-shirt colour will be determined in part by the winning design.
• By entering the contest you agree that your submission is your own work. The design must be original, unpublished, and must not include any third-party logos (other than the Islandora logo, which you are free to use in your design) or copyrighted material.

The Prizes:

• One free registration to Islandora Camp CO (or a refund if you are already registered)
• Two extra t-shirts with your awesome logo
• Bragging rights

How to Enter:

• Please submit the following by email to community@islandora.ca:
  • Your full name
  • A brief explanation of your logo idea
  • Your logo entry as an attachment. Minimum 1000 x 1000 pixels. High-resolution images in .eps or .ai format are preferred. We will accept .png and .jpg for the contest, but the winner must be able to supply a high resolution VECTOR art version of their entry if it is selected as the winner.
• Entries will be accepted through September 8th, 2014.

Details:

• Multiple entries allowed.
• Submissions will be screened by the Islandora Team before posting to the website for voting.
• All entries must be submitted by September 8th, 2014.
• Voting will be open online from September 9th to 12th.
• By submitting your design, you grant permission for your design to be used by the Islandora Foundation, including but not limited to website promotions, printed materials and (of course) t-shirt printing.
• We reserve the right to alter your image as necessary for printing requirements and/or incorporate the name and date of the camp into the final t-shirt design. You are free to include these yourself as part of your logo.
• The Islandora Foundation reserves the right to make the final decision.

Previous Camp Logos:

Thank you and good luck!