CARL Conference Presentation, April 2008
Susan Chesley Perry, Digital Initiatives Librarian
Kerry Scott, Collection Planning Librarian
University of California, Santa Cruz
What is Library 2.0?
Concepts:
Constant change, permanent beta
Feedback & user participation
Be where the user is
The vision:
Based on Helene Blowers' Learning 2.0 Program, first implemented at the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County in North Carolina.
University Librarian Ginny Steel's Vision:
Externally, strengthen the UCSC Library's relationship with the Santa Cruz Public Library
Internally, inspire learning and encourage play
The team:
Ann Hubble, Science & Engineering Electronic Resources Librarian
Ken Lyons, Reference Librarian
Danielle Kane, Science & Engineering Library Instruction Coordinator
Sue Perry, Digital Initiatives Librarian
and Kerry Scott Collection Planning
The things:
~20 Technologies and 23 Lessons. Each "thing" consists of: a short introduction, and site to explore and try, now blog about it.
The incentive:
$50 gift certificate to campus bookstore
The timing:
Participants were given 13 weeks to complete the exercises.
6 week extension.
Weekly drop-in "office hours" for help with any of the exercises
18.3.08
UCSC 23 Things Participation Statistics
In the summer of 2007, UCSC Library employed 27 full-time librarians and 73 staff people. Of that number, 21 librarians and 39 staff signed up for the program and created a blog:
- 60% of the total library population participated
- 78% of librarians participated
- 56% of staff participated
By the end of the program (September 2007):
- a little more than half of the 60 participants had stopped blogging.
- Of the number who stopped the program, most stopped by or before thing 5 (RSS feeds)a few made it as far as thing 11 ( LibraryThing).
Final Numbers:
30 people completed the program
- 8 librarians
- 22 staff
16.3.08
Feedback from the Participants
- During the first week of March, we invited all of the 23 Things participants to attend one of three different focus group/feedback sessions.
- We posed the same seven questions to each group (link).
- We had a total of 16 people attend the in-person sessions over the course of the week and two participants emailed their feedback.
- 30% response rate to the request for feedback
- Of that group, 12 did complete the program and 6 did not.
1. What did you like about the program? Why?
2. What didn't you like about the program? Why?
3. Did you finish? If no, why not?
4. What do you think the project team could have accomplished better?
5. Did you have enough time to complete the exercises?
6. Are you still using any of the 23 Things? Which ones? In what contexts?
7. If you are not using any of the 23 Things, do you have future plans to use them and in what context?
Focus Group Questions & Summary:
Question 1: What did you like about the program?
In this question, people focused both on the positive communal experience of the program as well as on specific "things." A few sample responses are below:
- positive whole library experience, everyone learned at the same time
- got to work with people I never would have worked with before this program (in drop-in sessions)
- appreciated the opportunity to learn the 2.0 vocabulary, felt better informed at system-wide meetings
- the self-paced nature of the program was appreciated
- Google docs, Del.ici.ous, LibraryThing, mentioned specifically as "things" people liked most
Question 2: What didn't you like about the program?
In this question, respondents indicated that the level of password creation, expectations to learn or understand new technological terms, and the very public nature of assignments (public blogs), were the most discomfiting aspects of the program. A few sample responses are below:
- spent so much time creating accounts
- too many passwords to remember
- it was like having your homework assignment online for everyone to read
- there was one exercise I got so lost and I spent so much time on and never completed - 15 minutes a day seems inaccurate
Question 3: Did you finish? If no, why not?
The overwhelming response in this category was lack of time. The issue of 15 minutes a day as "false advertising" came up again when this question was asked of the groups. Some respondents also indicated that some of the technical requirements of some assignments (RSS feeds, Flickr), were too much, too overwhelming and caused them to stop or slow down. Some respondents indicated that the time issue was theirs; that they spent so much time exploring that they strayed from the examples or exercises. A few sample responses are below:
- Too much, I would be happy for 10 things, too many things, too overwhelming
- Big leap in terms of terminology and couldn’t follow it, getting feeds into the blog, challenging, couldn’t understand the language and tricky to figure out, a little too technical, felt like needed to be a computer programmer to understand it
- Not of enough hours in the day
- In the beginning so sucked in, couldn’t focus in on the thing, got interested in the links, other options, more time in the day, more focus would have helped
Question 4:What do you think the project team could have done better?
Respondents commented on the lack of consistent feedback from team members and other participants on their blogs. There was an unmet expectation that there would be more of an online dialogue about the exercises than there was. Respondents also offered concrete suggestions for improving and expanding on the program:
- reorder the things, start with easier things and move up to more complicated items (RSS and Flickr specifically)
- present smaller sets of things at a time
- make the drop-in sessions more like instruction sessions, more formal help with the things
- immediate proliferation of things after the program was done, when the momentum was high
Question 5: Did you have enough time to finish?
Regardless of whether respondents finished or not, people generally agreed that more time would have been helpful. Some people felt they rushed through the end of the program to meet the deadline. The team did extend the deadline through October (4 people completed the program after the initial September deadline). Respondents primarily offered ideas to help people meet deadlines when asked this question:
- give people a better sense of how long each thing would take to do or learn about
- A little rushed through the end, extension was nice but not enough and it would have been nice to know one was coming then I wouldn’t have rushed through the last things.
Question 6: Are you still using any of the 23 things? Which ones? In what contexts?
Many of the respondents were still using the 23 things. Many used Bloglines and RSS feeds for work and home issues; several incorporated things into instruction programs and still others reported using things to efficiency work processes. A few examples are below:
- created a wiki for a library intensive course (ES 140)
- created blog for course (Econ 108)
- use chat to check in with supervisor and other staff when at the desk - helps with separate service desks, doesn't tie up the phone, quick, low interruption option
- one section schedules their service desk using Google calendar
Question 7: If you are not using any of the 23 Things, do you have future plans to use them and in what context?
Many people reported that they had plans to start wikis,create blogs, use chat and explore different podcasting options.
- Access is going to create a blog for student communication
- Film & Music and Access are planning to put student manual in a wiki
- explore del.ici.ous for ready reference option
15.3.08
Lessons Learned
- Consider the Order of the Things (some things are more difficult, start with easier items)
- Consider the Time Needed to Complete Things & Share Estimates with Participants
- Consider that Time is a Commodity and Space the Things Out in Reasonable Chunks (2 to 3 things over a select period of time, and so on)
- Consider Learning Styles and Serve as Many as You Can
- Establish the Expertise of the Team Before you Begin (point person/point blog)
- Make it (clearly) Relevant (to the work of the participants)
- Give Participants Feedback, Often (harder than you think)
- Make the Program Truly Collaborative (group/team blogs)
- Offer an Incentive to Complete the Program (it works)
- If things are similar pick one and explain why you chose it over the other OR explain the key differences between the two
- Provide workshops or drop-in sessions to help explain the things and their applications
- Perhaps choose Facebook over Myspace (or, whichever social networking site is being used most on your campus)
- Provide easy and more complex exerices and allow the participants to select which exercise they want to tackle
- Provide a completed sample blog for participants to reference if they get stuck
- Provide library-specific examples of things in practice to help participants relate to the thing or, see its applicability
- Make sure exercises open in a new tab or window so participants can toggle back and forth between explanation of thing and exercise
- Put a Statistics Counter on Your Blog
- Set expectations for participants on what to include in their blog posts. Set guidelines for proper communication and blog style - i.e. no flaming.
- Be reasonably flexible with your deadline or cut-off date
- Involve Your IT Staff Throughout and Beyond the Program - Be Poised to Implement
- Act Immediately After the Program Ends - pick some easy/quick to do things and do them fast
- Consider keeping the program going, one new thing a month or a quarter/semester
14.3.08
2.0 In Practice at UCSC
Following are some public uses of 2.0 tools by UCSC Librarians:
- Librarian Interview Presentation Blog
- Environmental Studies 140 Wiki (note: click on the sidebar option to see the feeds from the associated class blog)
- Environmental Studies 140 Class Blog
- Economics 108 Business & Society Class Blog (collaboration between 2 librarians)
- Economics 109 Business Ethics Class Page - Meebo Chat
- Sociology 179 Nature, Poverty and Progress Class Blog
- LibX Firefox Extension
- UCSC Teaching Support Page - Meebo Chat
- RSS Tools
- Google docs (calendaring/desk scheduling, meeting minutes)
- Meebo or Google Talk (communication among staff on service desks and their supervisors)
- Zoho Creator (database for tracking collection purchases)
- Zotero (bibliographic tool, for searching, saving info about books to be pulled/weeded and/or for class insturction resource lists)
- Wikis for meeting agenda creation
13.3.08
Tips for Getting Started with Your Library's 2.0 Program
A list of suggested steps is available through Google Docs, please feel free to make use of it. We hope the lessons we gathered from our experience will help make your program that much better.
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