Since 2009, University of Florida Libraries teams have offered CoLAB Workshops to more than 1,500 people as a means of bringing together people and resources to generate new partnerships and innovation. A part of the CoLAB Planning Series®, these workshops are a time efficient open-space facilitated process designed for groups of at least 14 and more than 100 participants. Its specific purpose is to facilitate focused conversations that yield the following:
1) discovery of hidden resources and/or potential collaborative relationships;
2) generation of new ideas for innovation and research; and
3) problem solving of issues by leveraging extant yet untapped assets.
Rather than focusing on what faculty, students, researchers, and community members lack in terms of access and resources, CoLAB processes connect “strangers” during three-minute speed-meetings while revealing hidden assets (passions, skills, networks and resources) that might otherwise take years to share or discover.
Bess de Farber, certified professional facilitator and grants manager for the UF Libraries, and April Hines, Journalism and Mass Communications librarian, have implemented a variety of assessment methods to evaluate the value of these one-and-a-half to two-hour workshops. This webinar shares:
• A visualization of a CoLAB Workshop from start to finish;
• Descriptions of types of CoLAB Workshops including participants, themes, and locations;
• Basic principles that produce consistently positive results for participants;
• Assessment methods;
• Promotional strategies to recruit participants; and
• Participant results and success stories.
de Farber and Hines present an overview of workshops within the CoLAB Planning Series.® A complementary book, "Collaborating with Strangers: Facilitating Workshops in Libraries, Classes, and Nonprofits," was released in April 2017 by ALA Editions within the category of How-to-Do-It guides.
See alastore.ala.org/detail.aspx?ID=11931 for information on purchasing the companion publication from ALA.
