Public services join up to help the community engage with new online technology
These days, if you want to apply for a job, book a hospital appointment, or simply keep track of your friends’ birthdays, you have to do it online. Getting online is vital, with society at risk of becoming disengaged and disenfranchised without digital knowledge and skills to lead their day to day lives as more and more services go online.
Libraries have a crucial part to play getting people online, providing free or low cost internet access across the Country. However, library staff were finding that they didn’t necessarily have the skills themselves to use some of the more modern communication and engagement methods currently being widely adopted across the globe such as Facebook, Flicker and other social networking formats. Librarians were finding that they too needed better knowledge and skills of these types of online media to better help and assist library users.
Based on a training programme called ’23 things’ created by an American Librarian, Helene Blowers, some librarians decided to update the concept to help librarians better help their users. The Society of Chief Librarians was the catalyst. Under the umbrella of the South East branch, Portsmouth and Surrey came together to work on the project which (also called ‘23 things’ in the UK as it encompasses similar topics), with content contributed by Devon and Kirklees. Research soon showed that other organisations were also looking for the same support and before long, nine library authorities, fifteen Universities, and two health trusts, from all across Britain were involved in developing this exciting training course.
23 things covers areas including microblogging, social networking, and user-generated content. The sections in the course are designed to be fun to do and short, just giving enough background to boost confidence and develop enthusiasm. Each section has been designed to be completed online, at the individual’s own pace and location. Each section is bite-sized and takes around an hour to complete. Each participant is required to set up a blog at the start of the course to monitor their progress.
The founding local authorities have found that using web 2.0 technology makes collaborative working across borders not just possible, but easy. The group set up a ‘wiki’ that enables any of the group members to edit and/or create content by just going online.
23 things is currently being tested, with a view to a trial roll out period in from July 2010 and because 23 things is an online course, it means that anybody, either in a partner authority or any other organisation can engage with it. There has been widespread interest in 23 things, and it looks set to be rolled out more widely than the founding partner organisations.