Digitalist life in the library

23 Things Oxford

Over the past couple of months I have been working with a team of fellow librarians planning Oxford's first 23 Things programme. The aim of the programme is to introduce library staff to web 2.0 technologies. We are basing our programme on the original 23 things, or Learning 2.0, programme run by the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County in 2006.

The 23 Things programme involves doing 23 activities (things) over 12 weeks to give library staff in all roles experience using web 2.0 technologies. Each week, the things will be posted on our blog for people to follow along. To record their progress participants are asked to blog about their experiences doing each thing.

The prime mover on this project has been Laura Wilkinson, the current Deputy Manager of Staff Development. She has done all the hard work getting support from senior management and publicising the programme to staff in all libraries across the University. She also brought together the merry band of helpers who have been writing the things. We have divided the topics between the five of us, taking ownership of two or three each. I feel I was particulary lucky with the topics I have been working on which are RSS feeds and Twitter.

As well as being heavily involved in the planning of the programme I also intend to participate. I feel fairly confident with most of the topics on our list but I am sure there is more I can learn. In the weeks where I have already done the set thing/s I will explore a feature of the tool which I have not played with before. Like the other participants I will record my experiences by blogging about them here.