I’m sure many of you will have seen this: Five weeks to a social library, a great course that is the “first free, grassroots, completely online course devoted to teaching librarians about social software and how to use it in their libraries”.
The preliminary program looks great, so if you’d like to participate consider applying now - the participant application is now up.
Our very own Sirexkat (aka Librarian Kathryn) will be presenting in Week Five of the Programme, and I note that someone from the National Library of Australia will be talking about social software initiatives at the NLA, too.
My only question is what time will the live group activities happen? I note that participants will have to “take part in a weekly small group chat (either via VoIP or IM) with four other participants and a facilitator and will have the opportunity to chat with social software experts throughout the week. They will also attend at least one of two live Webcasts offered weekly”. I’m not sure what time zone these chats will happen in - it could be a bit difficult for those of us in Australia/New Zealand…
Update: the course is limited to forty participants only so maybe it’s not going to be a particular problem. I imagine the demand will be quite high?? (Note to self: read more carefully next time!)
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October 3, 2006 at 10:36
Thanks for the plug, CW.
Lucky me, I get to enthuse about a project I ran at work to engage the staff in social software tools. I’m going to explain what we did, the choices we made with the technical setup, how we got people on board, kept the flow happening and the implications for the workplace afterward.I really enjoyed the project, so I’m feeling fine about getting the presentation content sorted.
Now, as to podcasting and screencasting….I’m more hesitant about it. Especially the “talking head” bit. To personalise it, I think I’ll need to show myself talking for at least a snippet of the presentation. Trickiest bit of the whole thing for me.
I’d really encourage everyone who is vaguely interested to apply. If you don’t get in, you can always view most of the course material anyhow. But if you are a course participant, you get to work closely with a small group of other participants and to complete an assignment with feedback from the course organisers…an invaluable networking, mentoring and (dare I say it) SOCIAL experience.
October 9, 2006 at 08:04
Greetings from ’someone’ at the National Library! I was thrilled to have my proposal for a podcast accepted for the course.
My podcast is going to be about several social initiatives that we’re working on at the National Library at the moment - not to mention two that are already up and running: PictureAustralia’s collaboration with Flickr, and ‘Take Part’ - a wiki for user contributions to Australia Dancing.
I’m fairly new to the library world - just coming up to the end of my year in the graduate programme. Before this, I was also part of the MusicAustralia team. I’m going to the New Librarians’ Symposium in Sydney later this year and hope to meet some of you.