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The 10 Things @ SPL: Inside Skokie Public Library's Staff Learning Program
By Richard Kong, Skokie Public Library
May 28, 2008
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Introduction

If there's one thing librarians (well, most anyway) can agree on, it's the idea that the world is rapidly changing. The ways in which people are learning, creating, communicating, interacting, researching, and using libraries are shifting and much of that, but not all, has something to do with the ever-changing tides of technology. Most librarians will also agree that libraries need to keep up with these changes or risk being out of touch and irrelevant. During the fall of 2007, Skokie Public Library underwent a staff learning program called 10 Things @ SPL in order to address some of these changes and help shape the library staff into a lean, mean, technologically agile machine.

In the Beginning

In August 2007, a core team of four staff members, who became known as the 10 Things Team (think the Fantastic Four without the super powers and snazzy uniforms), began meeting regularly to discuss and plan a staff-training program based on the original library Learning 2.0 program developed by Helene Blowers for the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County. Although that program divided the major topics into 23 Things, we tried to keep things even simpler and settled on 10 Things. Early on, we also set up a wiki to facilitate the planning and share ideas. During September 2007, the group proceeded to set up and customize the  10 Things @ SPL blog (hosted on Blogger), wrote the descriptions for each of the 10 Things, and began spreading the word about the program through word-of-mouth, mysterious posters and flyers, and a few information sessions as we got closer to the start of the program. 

The program kicked-off on October 1, 2007 and ran through December 13, 2007 for a total of about 11 weeks. The basic principles behind the learning model we used included the following:

• Self-paced: participants were free to move at their own pace and comfort level, but they needed to complete the program by a certain date to qualify for prizes.
• Collaborative: although individual participants kept their own blogs and progressed at their own pace, working and sharing with colleagues was definitely encouraged.
• Online: most, but certainly not all, of the learning happened online via the 10 Things @ SPL blog and further resources linked to from the blog.
• Reflective: participants were asked to maintain their own blog to record reactions, insights, frustrations, and ideas to each Thing.
• Easy: the descriptions and challenges for each Thing were made to be as simple and clear as possible; we also placed an emphasis on exploration and play instead of getting things right or doing things in a certain way; we also tried to have fun throughout the process.

The 10 Things

The basic structure of each "thing" consisted of Define, Discover, and Do. Each thing received a blog post which consisted of a brief definition of the technology or topic, a few examples of how these technologies and tools are currently being used by libraries and others, and a challenge to actually use the particular technology or tool of the week. The actual 10 Things included the following (get more details on our blog):

• Blogging
• RSS and Feed Readers
• IM
• Social Networking
• Flickr and Photo Sharing
• Social Bookmarking
• Podcasting
• Wikis
• Google Tools and Online Productivity
• The Virtual Library Branch

While participants tackled all these new topics, the 10 Things Team kept busy by checking the 10 Things email account on a daily (actually, more like hourly) basis and responding to questions, sending notes of encouragement, and troubleshooting technical issues. We also subscribed to the RSS feeds of all the participant blogs, read their entries, and commented as much as possible. Monitoring the blogs also enabled us to track the progress of each staff person and record this in a Google Docs spreadsheet. Furthermore, since we recognized early on that different learning styles exist, we scheduled and staffed a number of two-hour drop-in sessions in one of our computer labs to give people an opportunity to ask questions, work with others, and simply get away from their desk and regular duties to focus on the 10 Things uninterrupted. A lot of instruction, tip-sharing, and supporting also happened in the hallways, staff room, and all around the library. The 10 Things program was the talk of the library!

We had a halfway party, complete with a 10 Things piñata and cake, to celebrate the progress of all the participants and also to encourage others to get started with the program. The 10 Things program led right up to our annual staff day, which we turned into a day-long celebration and continuation of the things we learned during the 11 weeks program.

Results

A decision was made early on to require participation from public desk staff and make it voluntary for everyone else. The library had 152 staff members during this period and 121 of us participated in some way. That is an 80% participation rate! In the end, 94 people completed the program entirely, 21 people completed part of the program, and 6 people attended a basic Introduction to the Internet class that allowed them to receive credit for participating. 

Besides the sheer amount of knowledge and skill obtained by the library staff overall, perhaps the best outcome was the sense of unity and team-work fostered by having the entire library go through the 10 Things together. Whether someone breezed through the 10 Things or struggled through them, they did it while communicating and working together with their colleagues (often in other departments). From an online survey distributed at the end of the program, 95.7% of respondents indicated that the experience "encourage[d] communication among co-workers." Additionally, 72.9% responded that they enjoyed their experience with this "self-paced, online learning environment" and 91.7% responded that they would "do more online learning on a voluntary basis" if given the opportunity.

General Tips

In addition, here are some general tips to consider if your library is planning to embark on its own learning 2.0 journey:

• Don't reinvent the wheel! We were inspired by PLCMC's 23 Things, PVLD Learning 2.0, and STDL's Twelve Weeks to 2.0 (giving proper credit, of course). Visit our blog for more information on the 10 Things @ SPL program.
• Offer some kind of incentive to participate besides the joy of simply learning. We had incredible prizes!
• Limit the number of accounts people are required to create by making use of the behemoth that is Google (i.e., use Blogger to create blogs, Google Reader to keep track of RSS feeds, Google Talk to IM others, and Google Docs to explore free, online productivity tools).
• Participants will still need to keep track of a lot of account usernames and passwords, so give them an account information sheet that they can use to keep track of everything.
• Make sure your staff has time to complete the program while still maintaining their daily work schedules. Make sure participants feel supported by their supervisors to do so and understand that working on this continuing education program is a perfectly appropriate use of their work time. If possible, offer additional hours to part-time employees.
• Make sure everyone who wants to participate has access to computers, the Internet, and whatever else is needed to complete the program.
• Encourage participants to write thoughtful and substantive blog posts on each week's topic and activities. Also, encourage participants to view their colleagues' blogs regularly and leave questions and comments in order to foster more discussion.
• Involve supervisors and management from the get-go so they can get behind the program and encourage others to participate.
• Find a way to help novice computer and Internet users to get training on basic things before (or instead of) the web 2.0 topics you'll have set up for more experienced users.
• Communicate with staff using email and other traditional methods, in addition to the blog.

Conclusion

Overall, the 10 Things @ SPL program was a large success and strengthened the library significantly. It remains to be seen just how well we incorporate what we learned into meaningful services for our community, but there are already many concrete results, such as our use of Flickr, Facebook, RSS Feeds, IM, Blogs, Google Docs, and the Virtual Library. The heart of learning 2.0 programs is continuing education and the desire to explore new things, so the 10 Things @ SPL can be seen as just the starting point for our staff. One thing is for certain, though, and that is that the 10 Things @ SPL program helped us become a technologically agile staff capable of great things!

About the Author

Richard Kong is an Adult Services Librarian at Skokie Public Library. He was a participant of the inaugural ALA Emerging Leaders Program in 2007 and is currently a participant in Synergy: The Illinois Library Leadership Initiative 2008. He graduated from the University of Michigan School of Information in 2006.

Links

10 Things @ SPL - http://theskokieten.blogspot.com

Learning 2.0: 23 Things - http://plcmcl2-things.blogspot.com/

PVLD Learning 2.0 - http://pvldlearning.blogspot.com/

Schaumburg 2.0 Wiki - http://schaumburg20.pbwiki.com/

 

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