Hi there!

About

Starting with Chicago Public Library in 2015, learning circles are now being run in 27 public library systems across the United States and Canada and 13 branches of the Kenya National Library Service.

Wow! That’s a lot of learning! More than 1000 study group meetings actually. However, except for a few chance encounters, we’ve never been able to meet up in person to share our experiences and plans.

With the support of the Institute of Museum and Library Services, P2PU and Kansas City Public Library will be hosting a first-of-its-kind gathering of learning circle practitioners and peer learning advocates.

Goals

You can’t run a learning circle without setting goals, right? Together, our meeting aims to achieve the following:

• Get to know one another
• Share and document stories, outcomes, and best practices for supporting learning circles within libraries and community centers
• Co-design new exercises and tools that support learning circles and other related library programs
• Explore and build consensus about the learning circle model, its values, and potential directions for our movement

Location and Details

Kansas City Central Library. Photo credit: Jonathan Moreau CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

The gathering will take place at the Helzberg Auditorium on the 5th floor of Kansas City Public Library’s downtown location (14 West 10th Street, Kansas City, Missouri, USA.) KCPL is a fully accessible building, and we are available to help accommodate any specific needs you may have.

We’ll begin at 9 AM on the morning of Thursday May 17th, and end around lunchtime on Friday the 18th. For those who can make it, we’ll be hosting a dinner on Wednesday evening as well.

Lodging

Nearby hotel options include Kansas City Marriott Downtown, Hotel Phillips, Hotel Indigo, a bunch of other hotel options as well. There are also some nice Airbnb options available along the free, public streetcar line that serves the library and runs north to south between River Market and Union Station.

We are not planning on organizing pre-booked hotel rooms.

Getting to Kansas City

Kansas City is served by Kansas City International Airport (MCI), located about 20 miles north of the city. There are many Southwest flights in and out of MCI, so make sure you check their website, as they aren’t listed on most third party flight search engines.

A list of ground transportation options, including the public bus service, are listed on here. Services like Lyft and Uber are also available.

Guest List

We welcome attendance from all learning circle practitioners, facilitators, P2PU friends and supporters, librarians and educators, and those committed to peer, community-based, equitable and open learning. Our aim is for this to be an intimate and interactive event that will host between 30 – 40 participants.

Confirmed attendance includes the entire P2PU team of Nico, Dirk, Sharon and Grif (we live in three different countries – so this is a rare event!), learning circle facilitators and librarians from Chicago Public Library, Wichita Public Library, Tampa-Hillsborough Public Library, Twin Lakes Public Library, Charlotte Mecklenburg Public Library, and of course let’s not forget Kansas City Public Library too. We also plan to host long-time P2PU advocates and others who have been running learning circles in community centers, literacy centers and immigrant learning centers.

Registration

If you would like to attend, we would love to have you. Our only expectation is that those who attend will be able to actively contribute their experience and have an interest in the development of learning circles and P2PU.

There is no big registration process necessary and no registration fee. The only costs you incur are travel to Kansas City, lodging, and dinner on Wednesday night should you want to attend. (We’ll take care of breakfast and lunch on Thursday for everybody).

FAQ