Hack the Library Organizing Aldelphi University Libraries’ First Hackathon
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Stanislav “Stan” Bogdanov and Rachel Isaac-Menard Hack the library Organizing Aldelphi University Libraries’ first hackathon n the increasingly digital world in which we signers, and project managers, collaborate Ilive, libraries and the concept of libraries intensively on software projects in competi- are constantly evolving. We continually ex- tion with other teams.”2 periment with technology and create library We stayed true to this definition at Adel- mobile apps and makerspaces in our quest phi. At our inaugural event, we had several to find the best ways to meet our patrons’ groups of students who represented a variety current needs and find relevance in their of departments at Adelphi. They all came lives. A new trend in the technology world together to develop library mobile and web now makes it easier to tap into fresh ideas, software applications over the course of a experiment more, and engage our audiences little under 24 hours. However, nowadays in innovative ways. This is exactly what we the term is used in a variety of other types did at Adelphi University Libraries, where of events that follow its basic principles of we organized our first ever student library intense project collaboration and competition. hackathon. When deciding whether to organize such an event at your library, it is important to explore What is a hackathon? all the options. It seems that nowadays everyone is hacking. Hackathons are no longer only about soft- The verb to hack is no longer just a scary, ware. Hardware hackathons or makeathons negative thing one does to steal something. are increasing in popularity. Intel has a With the advent of hackathons, hacking running Internet of Things line of events, implies creativity, innovation, remixing, and which take place every year and aim to make unorthodox problem solving. everything around us smart and connected.3 While the dictionary description of the There are also hackfests, codefests, tech- word hasn’t changed just yet, it is already fests, and more that seek to solve a specific used in a variety of fields with a positive con- problem via technology. There are also a notation, such as growth hacking in market- variety of “open challenges,” where people ing or in the very term hackathon. get together to solve all kinds of non-tech The term hackathon is quite loosely de- problems from creating new ways to process fined, and there is little to no peer-reviewed food to solving transportation issues in a research on this recent phenomenon. The Chinese city.4 best basic definition can actually be found on Wikipedia. It is based on a 2012 Wired 1 Stanislav “Stan” Bogdanov is senior instructional article about the proliferation of hackathons. media specialist, email: [email protected], A hackathon is “an event, in which computer and Rachel Isaac-Menard is reference librarian/ programmers and others involved in software emerging technologies coordinator, email: [email protected], at Adelphi University development and hardware development, including graphic designers, interface de- © 2016 Stanislav “Stan” Bogdanov and Rachel Isaac-Menard C&RL News April 2016 180 -Hack the Library 2015: A report tion, and participants submitted their ideas to of Adelphi University Libraries’ it at the event. A more popular site for such hackathon a service is DevPost, which we recommend At Adelphi University Libraries, we decided you use. It also allows for students to build that organizing a hackathon would be a perfect their hacking portfolios, for bragging rights, opportunity to get new ideas for our mobile or even for future job portfolio submissions. app, increase our outreach, and improve our Volunteers and judges are crucial in events image. Over the course of a year and a half, like these, and we established contact early the library’s emerging technologies coordina- with relevant departments, such as graphic tor and senior instructional media specialist design, computer science, and educational worked together to design and organize our technology. This helped us sign on a lot of first hackathon.5 We set up a library task force diverse volunteers and get word-of-mouth ad- to assist with planning and sought buy-in from vertising to the students. As soon as we knew Hack the Library 2015 advertisement banner for digital and outdoor signage. library faculty and administration, as well as we had a growing interest in the community, university-wide support. We knew that orga- we drafted a formal, two-page proposal for the nizing an event like this would require a lot event and started seeking funding. of lead time and considerable joint effort. Not We reached out to some external compa- many people were familiar with the hackathon nies, whose products we planned on using concept when we first started planning, so we during the event, to the library dean, and to had to spend a good amount of time crafting the provost to see if they had money in their an elevator pitch to educate our colleagues. budgets. We were not able to secure outside Organizing a hackathon involves many sponsorship, but learned that to be successful components and requires effective project in that endeavor, you really need to leverage management. At the start of the project, we your network. The majority of our budget created a Gantt chart6 to manage the various came from the university, through the pro- aspects of organizing a hackathon. This al- vost’s office. Having this budget from the very lowed us to see at a glance when we needed beginning made planning much easier because to start certain activities, whose responsibility it gave us a clearer picture on possibilities for it was, and what the due dates were. For prizes, food, etc. event management, we used a platform called Students realize hackathons are fantastic Hacker League. Students registered for the learning experiences, but often only while event there, we uploaded relevant documenta- they are participating. Usually, it is the prizes April 2016 181 C&RL News that draw them in. We had two main prizes Initially, almost 100 students expressed interest at our event—cool technology for first place via email and online form sign-ups. However, winners (a Moto 360 smartwatch) and Ama- the actual event had 32 participants—one third zon gift cards for second and third place. We of what we had aimed for. If you can, try to thought students interested in hackathons consider dates carefully. Do not schedule the would be interested in tech-related prizes and event near exams, major research assignments used the smartwatch throughout our marketing due dates, holidays, etc. To get a better date, campaign. When you plan we considered alternate your own event, be careful venues on campus, but not to plan prizes too far none were suitable for an in advance if they are tech event of this type. related. If we had ordered After booking our smartwatches one year in space, we knew that we advance of the event, they had to discuss legal and would have been obsolete IT considerations almost by the time we held it. immediately. We had our We wanted to reward university legal depart- our students for their time ment create a waiver that and motivate them, so we students signed prior to spent a big chunk of our participating in the event. budget on the prizes. This way, Adelphi would Free food is another be able to use ideas and big draw for students at apps created by the par- our campus, so we made ticipants. We also liaised sure the other big chunk with IT and facilities de- of the budget was spent partments to ensure wifi on that. We ordered pizza strength and energy sup- at the start of the hack- ply were adequate for athon, and coffee and the hackathon. One dif- snacks were brought in ficulty we encountered, later in the night. For for example, was that all the second day, we had the power outlets in the Winning app demo screen. boxed lunches (sandwich- room for our event were es) and coffee. Like many organizations, we connected to only two transformers. Since were limited to work with our caterer, which plugging in a lot of laptops could overload used up a lot of our budget. If you are not the system, we had to disperse the tables required to do this, you can keep costs down throughout the ballroom. This slightly im- by ordering pizza and snacks locally. peded the collaboration aspect of the event, As soon as we had our budget and plans since students were not as close to each other. for prizes and food, we knew we had to book After figuring out your space and tech a room and a date for the hackathon. We had needs, marketing should be one of the first to reserve our room a year in advance, and things you do. Pre-event marketing is critical even then we did not get the best date we to ensuring student participation (as well as could. We reserved the “ballroom,” one of interest on campus from administrators, fac- the largest spaces on campus for the event. ulty, and staff). We did this in various ways. Unfortunately, even with that lead-in time, In-house, we had a student intern from the we could only hold the event the Friday/ graphic design department, but your library Saturday before the start of the spring break, may have a marketing or outreach librarian. which was not ideal for student attendance. The student worked closely with our univer- C&RL News April 2016 182 sity’s marketing department. We also reached like-minded classmates and get help with their out to the graphic design department and had studying—no matter where they are located them agree to assign a hackathon branding in the library.