Thursday, July 16, 2009

23 Things @ NEFLIN Exceeds Expectations

NEFLIN started out this program by having the creator of 23 Things, Helene Blowers, speak at the NEFLIN Annual Meeting in September 2008. Helene talked about how she was trying to get her staff involved in understanding many new technologies in a fun, creative way, but was having little success. She came up with the 23 Things idea and…fast forward to today. The 23 Things has since wound its way around the world with hundreds of libraries in dozens of countries have completed the program.

The “23 Things @ NEFLIN” program ran from January 15 – April 15, 2009. Over 350 NEFLIN members from 40 different libraries participated. By the end of the program 134 staff completed the entire 23 Things. This participation and completion rate are above the usual measures for this program.

The most exciting discovery was from the participants who finished the program. According to an end of program survey, prior to 23 Things @ NEFLIN, participants had done the following:

  • Created a blog. 7%.
  • Commented on a blog. 10%.
  • Contributed to a wiki. 6%.
  • Subscribed to an RSS feed. 8%.
  • Joined Facebook or MySpace. 13%.
  • Listened to a podcast. 14%.
  • Watched a YouTube video. 22%.

We can now state that 100% of those who completed the program did all of the above, plus much more. We believe that hundreds of NEFLIN members are now more comfortable with web-based technologies and can better assist their patrons. The “23 Things @ NEFLIN” program is freely available on the web if anyone wishes to do it on their own. Visit the site at: http://neflins23things.blogspot.com/

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