great expectations
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The fortunes and adversities of mobilizing academic library staff for the futureTRANSCRIPT
Great Expectations
The fortunes and adversities of mobilizing academic library staff for the future
Erik Stattin & Malin CantwellKarolinska Institutet University Library
NordLiB 2.0, 21 November 2008
Who are we?
• Karolinska Institutet University Library– Academic medical library
– Staff of 110 - librarians, admin and IT
• Erik & Malin– Avid users of social media
tools
– Started talking about blogs & RSS in 2003
– Pet project
Some background
• Need for upgrading staff knowledge about Web 2.0 tools
• Need for a hands on practice, really getting to know stuff. No more talking!
• Readiness for constant change in work life
• Changing the way we work – towards more transparency
The goal was to…
• Encourage exploration of Web 2.0 tools of use for our organization
• Offering a guide to new tools for library staff
• Encourage personal responsibility for learning
• Understand expectations and need of our current and future users
The inspiration
• Slightly modified version of 23 Things
• Fewer things to learn, only 10• 10 things over 20 weeks gives
more time for exploration• Give examples for use in our
domain (medicine)• Reflective learning – every
task forced participants to reflect on use, internally and for our end users
The offer
• Every staff member was invited to participate voluntarily
• ”During 20 weeks you get to learn about the following 10 things…”
– Blogs– RSS– Wikis– Image and video sharing– Personalized start pages– Collaborative writing– Microblogging and
lifestreaming– Virtual worlds– Social bookmarking– Social networking services
The method
• A new task released every fortnight• Short video intro• Learning goals• Exploratory tasks• Beginner’s and ”advanced”
levels• Five mentors giving help• Workshops for catching up
Quantitative results
• Evaluation carried out after completion of our project
• 77 people started the program• 67 completed 1-4 tasks• 13 people did all tasks• Most popular: blogs, RSS,
wikis and image &video sharing
• Disappointing?
Qualitative change
• Staff is more self-confident• More relaxed attitude to new
technology• Change in the way we work• Actual use of several tools
”Nice synergy effects. People have gotten to know each other better.”
”I liked doing stuff myself, rather than watch an instruction.”
”It’s important to reflect, and also get the support of the mentors.”
”I feel that my professional competencehas increased enormously with 2.0.”
”I will definitely pull some of this in when teaching students.”
”The most valuable thing were all the good ideas that popped up in the reflections.”
Challenges
• We’re a busy organization– Main complaint: not enough
time
– Make people prioritize
– Partly a management issue
• People are too ambitious– Encourage a playful attitude
– Encourage ”beta” thinking, try first, evaluate later
• Change happens slowly– Early adopters need to be
patient
Ideas for the future
• New set of skills for librarians, managing social media tools
• Real interest from our university in upgrading knowledge
• Launching the concept for…– Post-graduate supvervisor
– Undergraduate teachers
• Launching a collaborative platform for institutional use
Thank you!
Feel free to contact us for more information. We’d love to share our concept and evaluation with you.
Videos @ http://www.vimeo.com/user365493
[email protected]@ki.se