Feedback from Torfaen Libraries

I have enjoyed the Wisekids Web 2.0 training very much. It has been informative and interesting throughout the 3 days. In fact, it has been amongst the best training I have had since working for the library service.

I can see the relevance of social networking for libraries and believe that a new generation of library user will be easier to contact on the www than by another means. We offer many resources online now including ebooks and rather than this excluding traditional customers I believe the service has expanded to encompass people who might not otherwise be using our facilities.

I had already set up a Facebook and Twitter page for our library service before the course but had never used a blog. I learnt how to use social networking to its best advantage and the found tips and tricks, including Hootsuite, very helpful. I now use Hootsuite to manage my Twitter accounts from one page and I am able to instantly see when someone has messaged me so I can respond quickly.
I enjoyed contributing to this blog page and felt quite confident when setting up our blog for Torfaen Libraries. I have embedded a Twitter feed and Facebook link to the page and will continue to add features and links as I discover more about Blogger.

I found the internet safety session very useful. I have decided to investigate running some 'Cyber Savvy' courses for young people. I think that children and teens have been forgotten about to an extent. We assume they know how to do everything, but in fact their knowledge of maintaining a 'positive presence' on the internet and protecting their information, is shockingly limited.

It would be great to have a follow up session in the future and to be able to contact Sangeet with questions as and when they arise.

Thanks very much Sangeet.
Best wishes,
Rosie

Vale of Glamorgan Libraries Project update - Links to my blog'n'tweets

I have added a few more bits to my Libraries Fortnight blog and still intend to carry on Tweeting when there's any news from the libraries - even started gathering followers now!

Blog: http://voglib.blogspot.com/

Twitter: @voglibraries

Update from Torfaen Libraries

Hi,
I have worked on my project and have put together the following:
I have had permission to set up a blog for Torfaen Library Service. It will be a weekly blog and contain info, photos links etc about whatever we have been up to.
I have added the Twitter feed from @torfaenlibrary and the Facebook link to our Facebook page. We previously had 3 separate pages for our libraries on Fb but it seems to work better now I have merged them.
I have also set up a discussion page on Facebook for our IT drop-in customers.
Looking forward to our final day of Wisekids training on Monday.
Torfaen Libraries' Blog
Rosie

Vale of Glamorgan Libraries - Promoting events in the Vale

After the last course I spoke to my manager and we agreed that I would use Twitter to publicise events coming up in the Vale during Libraries Fortnight and maintain a blog as a record of what took place.
It took weeks before our IT people sorted out my access to social networking and I still don't have full access, so most of my tweets have had to be made using the old mobile phone from our now-defunct Mobile Library. Sigh. I am not sure I'm ready to add a link to my blog from the Vale's website yet.

It's been a steep learning curve, as has my other project to set a geocache at each of our libraries (which took far more time than I would have liked), but I think I'm winning.

Looking forward to Monday's WISE KIDS session. Hopefully things will sink in then!

John Spalding Library - Project Progress Timeline

Hello again. Here's how my project has gone, so far.

October

1. Wrote up notes from Part 1 of the course, adding links and extra details. Emailed notes to colleagues across NW NHS Library Service

2. Went over ideas from the course with my line manager and decided on creating a blog to help Welsh Health Librarians communicate developments and innovations. Agreed to set blog to be accessible to author only until finaly approved.

3. Contacted Corporate Communications regarding setting up blog. Asked if there were any specific guidelines to follow (including policy on bilingualism).

4. Received reply allowing blog to go ahead.

November

5. Started designing blog. Added static pages, useful links, adjusted time and permission settings.

6. Attended marketing meeting in Bangor. Went over progress so far. Showed everyone what the blog looked like. Got feedback and nore ideas. Recommended course to colleagues.

So although the blog is not available for everyone to see just yet, I feel that quite a lot has happened since the first part of the course and hope to see the blog go live very soon.

Best wishes,

Sian x

Project update for Flintshire Libraries

Here is a more detailed breakdown of my project plans:
I have met with my manager and discussed my initial idea of creating two separate blogs to demonstrate the potential for our service and users :
1. Libraries in Flintshire - to promote library service to the public
2. FLIS FALLS - a tool for staff to share and 'cascade ' any new service developments or training with colleagues.
These examples will be presented to colleagues and management before going live.
In addition to I am also going to be reviewing Flintshire County Council's policy for social networking (and creating business plans where necessary!) to see what other aspects of the WiseKids sessions we can introduce to the service.

Project: Business Case for blog for CyMAL Sector Training Programme

Hi All

Please find a link to my hypothetical business case for the CyMAL sector training programme. It's a starting point if I was to set up a blog for this purpose.

Business Case for Blog for Sector Training Programme

Before I wrote the blog I did a mind map to help me focus my thoughts on the advantages of having a CyMAL sector training blog.

I'm looking forward to seeing everybody from the mid Wales event again at the end of the month!

Finally made it!!

Hi everyone,
My name is Kate Leonard and I work for Flintshire County Council as Community Librarian for Flint and the surrounding area. I left the two day course filled with ideas and enthusiasm which have only slightly faded with time and the reality of our corporate social networking policy.
My project will be a 'double demonstration' of the potential of blogs in both service promotion and staff training. I hope to share these examples with colleagues and management (as well as this group!)
See you in a week or so!

Heather's children's biblioblog

Hallo. I'm Heather the children's librarian for Cardiff. I'm getting quite excited about how Cardiff libraries may be able to get our children's reading groups involved in biblioblogging (like making up words). I love the way children get so excited about the books they enjoy and if we could encourage them all to share just some of this on a blog, perhaps we could start small with children in libraries and then blog further with primary schools and families.

Anna from the children's library has plans too, so we'll probably mingle and merge in some way.

Looking forward to fun and games!

Staff Blog

Mind map for a library staff blog which will be used to allow staff to add content, view training materials and discuss topics of interest to them. As well a being a useful staff tool this will provide the ideal pilot project for future projects involving public access.

Hi I'm Carys Roberts and I work for CyMAL. I have thoroughly enjoyed the two days on the training course and I've learnt a lot of useful things. I've created a mind map concerning ideas for library development and how social media could be of use to them.

John Spalding Library - I have a plan

My name is Sian and I am a librarian at the Maelor Hospital in Wrexham. Part of my job is being a member of the web development team. Following recent marketing training, we have been re-designing our intranet pages to make them more attractive and useful to different customer segments.

Through attending this course, I have been shown how our library service could better exploit free Internet resources. For my project, I would like to first share the things I have learned with my colleagues and then set up a blog to help keep both staff and library members up to date with library news and innovations. The blog could have a Useful Links section, tag cloud, About Us section and static pages with Contact Information...

See you in November.

Setting up a collaborative blog or wiki for distance learning students

I'm Catherine Drake and I'm the information advisor for Art & Design at UWIC.  We've just done a round of library inductions, so it has been very busy here.

My job involves teaching information literacy skills to students based at Llandaff, managing the book budget, stock collection, enquiry work and a bit of cataloguing.

For this project, I'm going to look into setting up a wiki or a blog for a group of doctoral students that I will be teaching early in October.  Many of these students live and work abroad, so this will enable them to access the presentation with links to useful sites & information.    I'm focusing on a small group of guinea pigs to assess how useful and successful it will be.  If it's something that students appreciate and want, then we can use this as a case study to show management that we need to embed social media more into overall library policy, particularly relating to how we inform and teach our students.

Web 2.0 Project for Swansea Libraries

Hello,

We are Nat and Emma and we are the Programme and Exhibitions Team for Swansea Libraries. We have an incredibly varied role, working with the team in HQ, Swansea Central Library and the community libraries as well as many external partners. We are also part of the team that looks after the Swansea Libraries Facebook and Twitter accounts, which were set up over a year ago.

Our project is to use Web 2.0 tools to create a wiki for staff, with access to shared documents, a google calendar with events listings and significant dates, useful links and access to our own digital resources. We think this should be particularly useful as it can be quickly and easily updated, accessed out of library hours if necessary and from non-networked PCs, presenting library staff with useful and relevant information all in one place.

We are also going to be taking over the unofficial blog by ‘Paige Turner’, making it official, renaming it ‘Swansea Libraries’ and rebranding it to tie in with our other accounts. The blog posts will feed into Facebook and Twitter as well as our new wiki. We will be using the tools we learnt about during the training to provide up to date and interesting content as well as useful information and links.

Torfaen Library Service - WISE KIDS Project

Hi, my name is Rosie Bradley. I work for Torfaen Library service. I have 2 jobs: Libraries and Learning Officer and Library Assistant - 18.5 hrs each.
I have learned lots of really useful new skills in social networking at the Wise Kids training sessions and have set out my rough plan of action below.
Plan
1. I am going to set up an interactive page on Facebook - probably in 'discussions' for the IT drop-in customers. It will mean we have to show most of them how to use Fb but it will give them a chance to ask us for help in between our classes. I would also like the reading groups to use Facebook discussions page to keep in touch with each other during the 3 weeks they are reading the chosen book.
2. The blog page I have set up will be continued as soon as I have the all-clear from senior management. I think it will be another point of contact and hopefully find a new group of customers. It could be linked to the launch of our ebook system next month and provide a guide to using ebooks, a few book suggestions and reviews. Ebooks may mean we have a new generation of customers who rarely set foot in the library but still borrow books. This sounds quite scary - but they will hopefully be brand new customers and many of our existing ones will carry on as before.
3. I have started using Hootsuite and am finding it very helpful. It is easy to spot when someone has mentioned or retweeted you so you can respond. I also like the facility to keep a list of particular #trends or @favouritepeople.
4. I will set up links between Fb, Twitter, Blogger and the website to make it easier to move around between them and update status on several at one time.
5. I hope to set up some tutorials for the IT drop-in customers to help them navigate around our online resources and to help them learn word processing tasks.

See you all in November!

Caryl's reflection

Unfortunatley, I had to leave class an hour or so early yesterday so did not complete the 'mind map' section of the course.

I found the information around 'Blogging' very useful and can definately see a use for this (or possibly wiki) with RCT library service, I think this would benefit all the library staff as a way of keeping up-to-date with whats happening ie - new policies, bank holidays, changes to working pattern etc, plus lots more.

I am looking forward to learning more about social networking today, for both my personal and professional use.

Going foward.

I'm looking foward to going back to the office and having time to go through the information I've taken in over these two days and coming up with plans for RCT libraries.
As well as using Blogs etc. for infroming the public about events, new titles and other general information regarding RCT libraries, possibly targetting differing user groups with differant Blogs, I would be looking at utilising the technolgy as an internal staff training and awareness tool.

Ant

Fingers Crossed!

My mindmap shows a plan for introducing Blogging to the Reading Groups in the Vale branches.

Currently the reports of discussions in the groups are posted on the library's page on the Vale website, but by using Blogger it is hoped to reach a wider audience. It will be more dynamic because the reviews can be added to by anyone in the group and it is hoped to enhance readers' experience by including author biographies and interviews, subjects for discussion and further suggestions for reading.