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.
Graduate Trainees
This year in Oxford we have 23 graduate trainees working in different college and OULS libraries. Last week I attended the first of their weekly training sessions. This included a discussion of their hopes and concerns for the year ahead and a presentation from a former trainee who has gone on to qualify and is now working in a government library in her first professional post.
My part in the session was to talk about the use of web 2.0 tools in libraries. This was really just an overview of some of the tools being used with examples of libraries in Oxford who are successfully engaging with their readers using social media. I began by asking them which tools they were using personally. The majority of the group were on Facebook but there were only a few on Twitter and just one who writes a blog. This is all about to change however as they become authors on the new Oxford Trainees blog. Their first task is to publish a short post introducing themselves and the library they are working in. The first one was posted yesterday and I'm very pleased to see that it was written by Charlotte Brooke the new trainee at my library 
I'm really interested to follow the development of this blog. I think it is a much better platform than a static website to get the trainees talking and sharing their experiences from the year ahead.
BBSLG Members' Forum – Twitter demo
How not to use Twitter
As I mentioned in my previous post, I did a quick demo of Twitter during the Members' Forum at the BBSLG conference last week - the few slides I used can be found on Slideshare.
At the beginning of the session a show of hands indicated that around 20 (approximately half of the group) people already had Twitter accounts. Of those about 10 tweeted once a week and only 2 or 3 tweeted once a day or more. This had been my suspicion and so I angled my talk to focus on why you should give Twitter another try.
The session seemed to go down well - it's always encouraging to see lots of nods from the audience. And I'm pleased to see at the last count 6 new BBSLG followers - hopefully they'll be more to come.
As ever immediately after I sat down I though of a million and one other things I could have said to help people get started. So, inspired by Jo Alcock's presentation at the New Professionals' conference, here are my top tips for anyone about to get started on Twitter:
- Upload a picture - show us you're human. It doesn't have to be a photo of you, although it is nice, but just something that shows a bit of your personality.
- Write a bio - for the same reason as before really. Prospective followers will want to learn a bit about you first.
- Follow, follow, follow - to get the most out of Twitter right from the word go you need to find people to follow and lots of them. As I mentioned in my talk find a few at first and then use their follower lists to find more like minded people.
- Share - this not only goes for what you're doing but what you're reading, viewing, thinking. Vary your tweets. Link to blog posts and articles you've found interesting and tell your followers why.
- Engage - it's easy to be passive but you'll get more out of Twitter if you get involved. If someone asks a question answer it. If someone posts something of interest to you retweet it. Make yourself visible and get involved. It goes back to that old saying you get out what you put in.
Recent Posts
- Things 13 & 14 – Social networking
- Things 11 & 12 – Podcasts and YouTube
- Things 9 & 10 – Social bookmarking
- Sheldonian Man
- Things 7 & 8 – Online photos
Recent Comments
- Jane on Things 13 & 14 – Social networking
- Kath on Sheldonian Man
- Theatregrad on Things 3 & 4 – Blogs
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Twitter updates
- @helen_281 your tweets don't have to be meaningful to count towards #ox23 - what we want to see is your blog post - why not tweet the link.. ...1 day ago
- I've just voted for the Great North Museum to win the Art Prize Fund. Cast your vote here http://www.artfundprize.org.uk/2010/vote/ ...1 day ago
- @MichaelStead you should definitely go to the @tynesidecinema's Coffee Rooms or there's the Side Cafe just off the Quayside ...2 days ago
- The BBC is mapping the growth of the internet http://bit.ly/bIOXdc (via @mashable) ...2 days ago
- @theatregrad go for a wander through the University Parks, you might even get to see some ducks ...2 days ago
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Delicious Links
- UK Library/Librarian Blogs Custom Search
- Oxford Cycle Workshop
- Twitter Support : My account is compromised! (hacked?)
- Aviary
- Social Media Toolkit
- #echolib: The Seth Godin Uber-Echo Disaster
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