[Editor’s note: While in Australia last month, Stephen Abram was introduced to this innovative group of librarians who were ready to jump into the brave new world of social networking tools. Although Stephen was delighted to help them launch their effort, the program does not require outside assistance for a library to complete. So read about this adventure and then join in the fun!]
Stephen Abram helps the Yarra Plenty Regional Library launch the Library 2.0 training program. |
Stephen Abram, SirsiDynix’s vice president, Innovation, and one of the Library Journal’s “Movers & Shakers top 50 people who are shaping the future of libraries and librarianship,” launched Yarra Plenty Regional Library’s (YPRL) Library 2.0 training program in October at Thomastown Library. The program is designed to make people feel comfortable and confident with the social networking tools that are becoming so popular and to encourage them to find ways of using them in the public library environment.
The learning program was devised by the Public Library of Charlotte Mecklenburg County in response to information from Michael Stephens, the librarians’ blogger, and Stephen Abram, who identified 43 and 23 things respectively that librarians should know about the new Web 2.0 technologies. The online program takes the learner through a number of exercises including creating a blog, posting photographs to a Web site, and tagging and podcasting. PLCMC has generously licensed their work under Creative Commons, which means that anyone can use it within boundaries. The staff at YPRL have three months to work their way through the exercises, and, at the end of this period, those who have successfully completed their tasks will be presented with a USB memory stick and a certificate, and be entered into a drawing for a laptop computer.
At our Thomastown Library event, Stephen spoke about the many ways that libraries could use social networking tools to create online communities and to facilitate the creation of content in libraries. He gave an example of a U.S. library that had teenagers take photos of the historical buildings in the town, and then invited senior citizens to provide the narrative of the history of the buildings, thus creating a digital local history site.
He described the latest “thing” – Second Life. Second Life is a 3-D virtual world entirely built and owned by its residents. Since opening to the public in 2003, it has grown explosively, and today is inhabited by more than 900,000 people from around the globe. There are shopping malls, events, homes, lands of different types, and, best of all, participants can contribute content, buildings, and other digital creations. And yes, they have not one but two libraries, which provide reference services and homework help. You can join their library and get access to online material.
MySpace is host to a number of public libraries that use it to connect with their teenage users, and librarians are by far the most enthusiastic professional bloggers. Yarra Plenty Regional Library has two blogs, a general library one and another local history one, and is about to launch a Wiki to encourage people to contribute to local history and local literature sites.
The staff at YPRL are enthusiastically taking up the challenge and, with the program only three days old, there were already 43 staff enrolled and 10 blogs posted!
· The learning program for Public Library of Charlotte Mecklenburg County is at http://plcmcl2-things.blogspot.com/
· Stephen’s Lighthouse is at http://stephenslighthouse.sirsi.com/index.html
· Michael Stevens weblog, Tame the Web: Libraries and Technology, is at http://www.tametheweb.com/
· Yarra Plenty’s online learning blog is at http://yarraplentyonlinelearning.blogspot.com/
