Two Three

As a manager of a small, busy branch library, Learning 2.0 has taken an enormous amount of staff time – much more than expected or originally stated when we first embarked upon it. Some of the struggle was (and still is) not just finding the time for all staff to do the weekly tasks, but also ensuring that staff understand what each task is and why they are doing it – not just getting it out of the way by following instructions. I felt that initially there were no good clear instructions, or suggestions (eg.to keep track of your sign-ups and passwords) and people got bogged down early (eg.particularly with the RSS feeds ) and got really disheartened and pessimistic about the whole process. I ended up doing the Things myself first (sometimes at home) and then helping my 3-4 staff through the rest - so overall it took at least a few hours out of my work every week.

I feel that often one of the Things would have been enough per week not two or three, as after struggling to get us all through one, it was difficult to face up to another couple and still get our regular jobs done. I also often felt I couldn't spend enough time on one Thing, as with limited time I felt I had to hurry on to the next to be able to get them done.

Personally, I have found Learning 2.0 rewarding - even though a lot of what we looked at is largely American and still not very big yet in Australia, it is good to know what is out there and be aware not only of the way libraries potentially might be going but the way we need to direct ourselves. I found it valuable to know what is going on, and what so many people are spending their time doing - even if I do find it rather overwhelming and perhaps somewhat superficial in some cases.

I think that the practicality of the programme was good - making us have to physically do things such as blog and explore pictures and set up a Rollyo search engine etc, made us realize that these things aren't hidden away behind a big brick wall, and also made us really understand the Thing we were looking at, not just the theory of it.

So what am I going to do now with the reclaimed hours in my week? Well, think about how I can use Wikis and podcasts and blogs in my branch library perhaps...!!!