• Thing 23: Summarise your thoughts on the 23 Things programme

As one of the organisers of Oxford’s 23 Things programme I have had a very different experience from the majority of participants. For most this programme has only been running for 12 weeks but for us it started in November with the initial planning stages. The then Deputy Manager of Staff Development, Laura Wilkinson, was the mastermind behind the programme. She did the majority of the work planning the logistics of the programme and then the topics were split between the 23 Things Team (5 of us in total), each member taking responsibility for planning and writing the tasks for that theme. My two topics were RSS feeds (week 3, things 5 & 6) and Twitter (week 8, things 15 & 16).

As a participant in the programme I must admit that there was little that I had not experimented with before in some way, the only exception I think was Picnik. My aim with the programme was to try and find new aspects of old tools to explore. In most cases I think I have achieved this, for example I am now using my Delicious network, I have edited a page on Wikipedia and subscribed to some channels on YouTube.

What I have enjoyed most about the programme is seeing a community form within the Bodleian Libraries (formerly Oxford University Library Service). Everywhere I’ve been over the past few months there has been a buzz about 23 Things. This has really come out in the participants’ blog posts too where people have written about their conversations in the staff room and how they have helped or received help from other participants.

The element of the programme that I think has worked the best is the participants’ blogs. All participants have been keeping a record of their progress through their blog and it has been really interesting following this. I have been so pleased to see so many people expressing their love of blogging and seeing people develop their voice over the past 12 weeks. I’m looking forward to reading the updates from those participants who choose to continue blogging now that the programme is over.

Well, I guess that’s it. I’m off to register completion and think about what the hell I’m going to blog about now that 23 Things is over!

• Thing 21: Use a gadget to display your Flickr photostream on your blog
• Thing 22: Use a widget to put your Delicious bookmarks on your iGoogle page

I already have my Flickr photostream displaying on my blog. For this I use Flickriver primarily because its simple style fits in better with my theme. I didn’t previously have my Delicious bookmarks on my iGoogle page, although they are in my blog’s sidebar, so I have now added them.

I’m really pleased that this topic was chosen for the penultimate tasks of the 23 Things programme. For a couple of years now Jane Rawson and I have been teaching a Gadgets and Widgets session on the WISER programme (this year it was renamed Getting Organised on the Web). I find that it’s the connections that you can make between your profiles on the different sites that makes web 2.0 really useful. The best example of it in practice in libraries, and one I’ve used before, is from the Vere Harmsworth Library who use their blog as a hub to feed and retrieve information using widgets and RSS from profiles on Facebook, Twitter, Delicious and LibraryThing. Genius!

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.

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.

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:

1. 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.
2. Write a bio – for the same reason as before really. Prospective followers will want to learn a bit about you first.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.