BC

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Welcome to Code4Lib BC! Begun in Summer 2013, this chapter aims to create connections and professional development opportunities for folks from British Columbia and surrounding areas.

You can find the public discussion channel on the Code4lib Slack in #c4lbc.

If you're interested in hosting, please take a read over our Planner's Guide.

Tenth Code4Lib BC Unconference 2025

This year's C4LBC will be held in Vancouver, BC, and hosted by Emily Carr.

Location: Emily Carr University of Art and Design, 520 E 1st Ave. Map to get there, Rennie Hall (inside the front entrance). For more information on transit and parking, please check the Emily Carr Campus Location, Parking, Transit, Contact page.

What's it all about?

It's a 2-day unconference - a participant-driven meeting bringing together a diverse and open community of library developers and non-developers engaging in effective, collaborative problem-solving through technology regardless of their department or background.

This year’s event will feature lightning talks and breakout sessions. Lightning talks are brief, 10-minute presentations on topics related to library technologies. Breakout sessions are an opportunity to bring participants together in an ad hoc fashion for a short, yet sustained period of problem solving, software development and fun.

  • What's included: a room, coffee/tea, wifi, power
  • What to bring: your ideas and enthusiasm.
  • Socials Hashtag: `#c4lbc`
  • Code of Conduct: As a Code4Lib event, we adhere to the Code4Lib Code of Conduct, which seeks to provide a welcoming, harassment-free environment.

If you need help with funding your attendance, you can request a bursary by October 3, 2025.

Lightning Talk and Breakout Session Ideas

If there’s a neat project you've been working on, a cool new tool you want to show off, or an interesting development in the world of library technology that you want to discuss, Code4Lib BC is a great opportunity to share that with the community.

Submit a lightning talk or breakout session idea

Breakout Session Ideas

  • Struggling Through Burnout (esp in IT); Getting Our DIY Ethic Back (Daniel Lerch)
  • GenAI Critical Literacy workshop demo + discussion (Michelle Ng) (20 person limit)
  • Knowledge management and M365/SP migration headaches (Michelle Ng)
  • Protecting website content created by libraries and server resources from Gen AI (Desy Wahyuni)

Food

Coffee/tea and light snacks (think: pastries, granola bars, fruit) will be available at the venue.

Attendees are encouraged to explore the wide range of food and beverage options nearby. Local organizers have provided a few recommendations below. If you have dietary restrictions/preferences, feel free to ask for specific suggestions!

Coffee & baked goods

Meals

Schedule

Please note that all times are PT (Vancouver, Canada).

Day 1 : Thursday, October 16

8:30 Venue opens
9:00 Welcome and announcements
9:15 Icebreaker activity
9:30 Lightning talks
  • Remember When We Were Excited About Virtual Worlds? Let’s Try That Again - James Fournie
  • Sustainable Local Development; or, Two PHP Scripts in a Trench Coat - John Durno
  • User Experience: Case study plus discussion of a planned BCLA interest group - Janis McKenzie & Mark Goodwin
  • Making the Web Accessible: Putting WCAG 2.1 and 2.2 into Practice - Cynthia Ng
10:30 Break
10:45 Lightning talks (continued)
  • Challenges of Identity and Access Management Policies and Documentation - Caitlin Lindsay
  • Manipulating MARC: Indigenous Cataloguing Beyond the Standards - Taya Jardine & Christina Needham
  • Developing introductory, interactive workshop modules on GenAI Critical Literacy - Michelle Ng
11:45 ECU campus tour / Lunch!
1:15 Breakout sessions
  • Manipulating MARC (redux) - facilitators: Taya Jardine & Christina Needham
  • Digital sovereignty, the surveillance state, & protection of privacy - facilitator: John Durno
  • Cookin' with VR - facilitator: James Fournie
2:30 Break
2:45 Breakout sessions (continued)
  • UX breakout! - facilitators: Janis McKenzie & Mark Goodwin
  • Are all the ULs hanging out without us? Consortial LSP planning and rumours - facilitator: Tamarack Hockin
4:00 Breakout reports
5:00 Social event at Red Truck Beer Company 295 E 1st Ave

Day 2 : Friday, October 17

9:00 Welcome and announcements
9:15 Lightning talks
  • Transforming Unstructured Data in a Knowledge Base: Exploring the Potential of RAG and LLMs at SFU Library - Ian Song
  • Consent Not Required: (AI) Technology as Connection - Coco Chen & Rebecca Ardron
  • Building AI Literacy in the Public Library - Jaclyn Fong
  • Defending Library Services Against AI Scrapers - Scott Leslie
10:30 Break
11:00 Lightning talks (continued)
  • Working with APIs: Flows and Runner in Postman - Olga Kalachinskaya
  • Bulk DOI generation in DSpace with the Super-Duper-App! - Daniel Sifton
  • Building an assignment planner on Playlab - Joyce Wong
11:45 Lunch
1:00 Breakout sessions
  • Finalized day-of based on attendee interests. See list of proposals above or submit your own.
2:30 Break
2:45 Breakout sessions (continued)
  • Finalized day-of based on attendee interests. See list of proposals above or submit your own.
4:00 Breakout session reports / Who wants to host Code4Lib BC 2026?

Sponsors

We want to acknowledge the continued administrative and fiscal support from the BC Libraries Cooperative.

2025 Organizers

  • Cynthia Ng
  • Dan Lerch
  • Daniel Sifton
  • George Villavicencio
  • Hillary Webb
  • James Fournie
  • Janis McKenzie
  • Michel Castagné
  • Michelle Ng
  • Rebecca Dickson
  • Scott Leslie
  • Tamarack Hockin
  • Trevor Smith

Past Events

See our past events page.