Staff at the Greenwood County Public Library are 20 times more tech savvy this year as they participate in an Internet-based learning experience. Staff are blogging, sharing photos, and creating LibraryThing accounts among other activities. Director Prudence Taylor reports: “The staff learning experience is going really well. The 5th person finished yesterday, and got her new MP3 player today! I gave it to her at the Circ Desk, and she was so excited about getting it.”
Project momentum continues as other staff catch the excitement. The Library bought 5 inexpensive MP3 players and 1 fairly inexpensive digital camera so the staff could learn to use them. Staff who complete all 20 exercises qualify to compete in a drawing for the grand prize - a new laptop computer. The program is modeled after Charlotte-Mecklenburg Public Library’s “23 Things” program. Take a look at Greenwood’s learning experience here. [Link no longer available.--fdv 7/5/07]
It doesn’t get any better than free and easy now does it?
You can now find free computer how-to tutorials, available at http://www.inpics.net. The tutorials can be used by anyone, free of charge, and they are so easy to use. Each tutorial is broken down into categories so that you can just choose the part that you might need to learn about and skip the rest. This will be a convenient way to provide staff training at no cost.
Now available:
Microsoft Office
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Access 2003
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Excel 2003
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PowerPoint 2003
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Word 2003
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Publisher 2003
Openoffice.org
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Base 2.0
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Calc 2.0
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Impress 2.0
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Writer 2.0
Web layout
Later this year they will be adding more free tutorials such as:
If your New Year’s resolution was to get in shape in 2007, you now have some new tools to keep you on the straight and soon-to-be-narrow.
If you’re happy with the shape you’re in, remember the sobering fact that South Carolina remains in the top ten states for obese adults. S.C. libraries have great health resources for library users, and so much good information is available now online.
Two new social websites, FitDay and Traineo, offer free, fun to use interactive tools to motivate and support users to reach weight loss and fitness goals. The websites have familiar social software components. If you join, you can use your new TechTracks skills to blog about your progress along with other members, join interest groups and chat.
Both sites allow you to input daily calorie intake and calculate calories burned, get detailed nutritional analysis, log weight changes and analyze progress. FitDay offers journaling (blogging). In Traineo, you can identify a set of “motivators” – family and friends who will receive emails of your progress and who can cheer you on toward your goal.
The best thing about these new tools is that they provide a sense of community and common purpose. The biggest winners? South Carolina library users!
A new year is always a good time to reflect, and 2006 was certainly an incredible year for us here in LDS. Here are some of the highlights:
- We added two great new people to the department: Kathy Sheppard and Julie Boller.
- We had our first joint meeting (of many, we hope) with LDS staff at the State Library of North Carolina.
- We hosted the Leadership Institute in partnership with the University of South Carolina, School of Library and Information Science.
- Library 2.0 became an all-consuming passion for all of us, resulting in the creation of this blog, new Bloglines accounty, MySpace and/or Facebook accounts, Flickr accounts, Second Life avatars, etc.
- We hosted Tech Express, the first ever technology institute for SC public libraries and met the fabulous Jenny Levine, Michael Stephens and Stephen Abram. Tech Express was really a landmark event for us, and we hope to do it again…..soon!
2007 promises to be just as exciting.
We’ve decided to organize our efforts a bit this year, and in doing so, we’ve created the South Carolina Libraries 2.0 Initiative. The initiative brings together several different training programs, services, and development tools for libraries. The objective is to help libraries of all types, but particularly public libraries, to plan and create strong services for the ever-changing demands of an increasingly sophisticated population. Some of the programs included are:
- TechTracks, a series of training classes on various social networking technologies and services
- An update of the South Carolina Public Library Standards
- A restructuring of the certification program for the state’s public librarians and staff
- Extreme Teens, a weeks-worth of activities all over the state during Teen Read Week, October 2007, including a teen institute, featuring teen-services guru, Patrick Jones
- Participation in the Hispanic Outreach Grant program from WebJunction
…And these are just a few of the things we have in mind!
What’s happening in your libraries this year? Leave some comments on the blog. You might inspire others to mirror your program or partner with you to expand its success. We’re looking forward to hearing from you.
Felicia
