What is Five Weeks to a Social Library?

 

• The first free, grassroots, completely online course devoted to teaching librarians about social software and how to use it in their libraries.

 

Check it out!

 

 

The Model

 

• 40 participants
• Small group chats weekly
• Synchronous (through OPAL) and asynchronous presentations
• Weekly activities to get students involved with technologies
• Participants blog and comment on each others' posts
• Final project: proposal to implement a social software tool at their library

 

 

Why we did it

 

• So many librarians don't have access to quality continuing education.
• So many people don't have the time or institutional support to attend conferences.
• A one-day workshop doesn't ensure continued use of the tools taught. Technologies often take more than a day to get comfortable with.
• So often, online courses are taught using expensive tools when there are lots of open source options out there.

 

We wanted to show that it could be done in new ways and on the cheap so others could replicate it!