Powys Libraries - One small step for a man....

The timing for the Wise Kids course could not have been better. The day after the fist two day block I gave a presentation on possible involvement in social media sites to the Powys Libraries management team. It really helped that I had actually used Twitter, Facebook and Blogger by that time. However the team gave me a fairly vague "Well you'd better make a start then" without addressing any of the issues. Over the next month I was quietly asked about how much of my time it would take and other related issues. The team as a whole saw the marketing value of the media without grasping the implications of what it takes to build an audience.
At the next management team meeting I talked about the nitty gritty of who and how and was given the go ahead for a Twitter account and a Facebook page. (Our senior librarian didn't "see any point in a blog"). We are still exploring what to do about a sit/blog for children. Our IT Dept has given me access and we now have a Twitter account, and a Facebook page. All I need now is content!

Wise Kids Feedback

I thoroughly enjoyed the three day course. I especially found the practical elements very useful, learning how to set up a blog and how to add things to improve the blog, twitter feeds and pages etc. I learnt many new things that I can hopefully implement in the near future.

The third day, concentrating on Information Security was an eye opener to me as I hadn’t previously thought about facebook issues such as if you “check-in” somewhere other than your home that you’re broadcasting the fact that you aren’t at home etc. As a suggestion I would say that I would have liked to have done a few more practical exercises on the third day, looking at further social media tools.

The break between the three days was good as after the second day I was suffering with information overload. It was good to take a breather from it and put what I had learnt into practice with the project and writing blog posts on this blog. I’m really grateful to Sangeet for offering her help and advice to us in the future as I’m sure I will need it!  

Feedback

Hi

Before entering my feedback I would just like to thank Sangeet for 3 very enjoyable and informative days.

1.       I enjoyed each of the days and learned a great deal about social websites etc. However the most important thing i will take from this course is that it has clarified my thinking with regard libraries and their use of social networking sites. Before this course if you had asked me if libraries should make use of such sites i would have said yes definitely but with very little idea of how this could be done successfully. This course has shown how the different sites can be brought together to form a cohesive and professional looking product that places your library in the virtual world.

2.       Not really sure about what support we need except to say that as the focus of the course has been very much on practical applications of the learning it should very much encourage this. I think yearly update courses would be beneficial to provide training on recent innovations in the field and provide an opportunity for different library services to highlight and discuss the work they have done.