2016 Conference Committee Comments

And my attempt at annotated comments from the emails, based on the discussion thus far.

Publicity: Uri KolodnEy included because "I would like to step up our outreach to our Israeli (as in currently working in Israel) colleagues. We will discuss this further."

Gift shop:
(Daniel:) My idea for the AJL gift shop is to create various kinds of AJL crap (t-shirts, mugs, whatever) on Zazzle or a similar site and sell them before, during and after the conference. We (by which I mean you) would probably do most of the selling online, but we should have one or two items at the conference.

(Toby:)  I think we should start the gift shop tradition for the 50th....what a great idea!
(Karen:) So let me do a little research into which online store makes the
 most sense for us. Probably makes sense to offer some general AJL merch as well as year specific. Plenty of time to get it going. All I need is the appropriate logo image files and someone to consult with as to what type of products we want to offer.

There may be better choices than cafepress or zazzle for our purposes.
(Jackie:) I have family in DC that prints up these kinds of things. They are already committed Jews who revere learning so I think we can get a great price. I am already talking to them about 2015 giveaways.

Karen, do you have people you work with or should I introduce you guys online after the holiday weekend?
Now that we all have to bring bags to the grocery store, perhaps we can create a series of bags with images from beautiful manuscripts that are already posted online like the ones we saw in Emile's presentation in Vegas. The institution donating the image gets publicity on one side and we get publicity on the other. I'm sure we also have some funny photos in our online archives as well, I know AJU does. These bags wear out and people will have to replace them, so that's built in obsolescence.

(Karen:) Please do introduce me.

Although I think we should not do a whole lot of merch we sell on site. Or rather merch sold on site should probably be AJL general merch so that leftovers can be sold at future events rather than being dead overhead cost.

Year specific merch I would sell online so we don't get stuck paying for stuff we don't sell and end up in the red on it. If we set up enough non advance we can encourage people to order in anticipation of wearing/using at the conference itself.

I've used booster.com for shirts in that way. No costs to us. Plusses and minuses of course. But since we have no idea how big our merch market is I'm really wary of doing it in a way where we have to put a good amount of money out upfront.
(re: Jackie's comment about using manuscripts from AJL institutions:) that could be a good idea once we figure out copyright ;-) that's the kind of thing that could work online and onsite since it is not event specific.



Edutainment:
(Daniel:) With Edutainment, I would like to brainstorm on some sort of conference entertainment that has a direct connection to our work. For instance, musicians that work from sheet music from one of our special collections, etc. Or it could be something better.

(Amanda:) It's a great idea to have music performances from special collections
 at FAU. We did this at NYPL recently and it was very successful. As
 long as we pay the musicians (sadly, some conferences expect musicians
 to volunteer their time and services, which I find very
 unprofessional). We could open the concerts to the public and charge
 admission if finances are an issue.
(Daniel:) My hope is that we can fundraise in a targeted manner (I don't know if that the right way to phrase it) and we can get a donor specifically for that purpose. Has ve-shalom, I would expect musicians to work for free. I know that the D.C. folks are planning to have some programming for the general public. Maybe we could do something similar.


Shnorring:
(Yaffa:) Kol ha-Kavod! we can talk schnorring in an organized manner, locally and nationally, I promise.


General comments (or comments that fall under multiple categories):

1. (Sara:) I'm going to build on this in a slightly different way: at conference time, one of our biggest strengths works against us. We are diverse in both the nature of our member institutions and in their geographic locations. Compelling edutainment may not always be local to the conference site every year, even if it is based on a local collection.
   
   Gift shop/Edutainment:
   What if we collect tangible products of creative work based from our collections and offer them on biddingforgood? This could be anything from live performance tickets to DVDs, MP3s to K-12 artwork. In some cases a member or creator would be able to donate it outright with the bid winner paying postage. In others, we would start the bidding at a figure that would cover the donor's cost+reasonable profit margin.
   
   
   
   This would showcase the wide variety of what is being done with collections throughout the world, and allow for visibility where not just members see what is happening, but patrons see the creative impact of library collections and programs. (Even if you aren't allowed to promote competing fundraising, would most organizations be okay with you promoting that such-and-such item is being included in such-and-such auction showcasing work created from such-and-such?) And bonus additional fundraising and visibility from any other person who happens to be browsing through the auctions. :-) The money could be used for the on-site performance.
   
   
   Other
   My other idea is offering local teachers a free day of conference in exchange for on-site babysitting. (I see you've enlisted the rest of your family (hi, Daniel's mom!), but more than one kid might be a little too much for Z...)
   

we can probably do the bencher and kippot from the same vendor, no? perhaps i'll start a separate thread for that. anyone have experience ordering benchers/kippot for simchas/smachot? i also think they would be good to have for the 50th annual conference, aka, ajl2015. my half-cent's worth... jasmin

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