The Brevard County Libraries 23 Things program is based on the Learning 2.0 Program originally developed for the staff of the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County (PLCMC).
The program has quite a history…
It was designed by Helene Blowers, who was then Technology Director at PLCMC. She loosely based the program on an article by Stephen Abrams, who has a long history in libraries and describes himself as a “library geek”.
Stephen Abram’s article, 43 Things I might want to do this year, was published in Information Outlook in February 2006. It was inspired by his use of a website called “43 Things”, a site he used to set and track goals, including a list of 43 Things he wanted to learn about, discover, and play with.
Inspired by the idea, Helene designed the Learning 2.0 program as “a discovery learning program designed to encourage staff to explore new technologies”. Due to time constraints, she only selected 23 Things. There were no classes or workshops; it was completely self-directed. Staff was in control of their own learning and encouraged to explore and play by working through a set of discovery exercises found on the Learning 2.0 website.
The Original 23 Things included exercises on blogging, RSS, working with images on Flickr, tagging on social bookmarking sites, exploring online video, podcasting, and downloadable content.
At last count, over 250 libraries from all over the world have done a 23 Things-type program, with thousands of staff members participating. And the original PLCMC program expanded to include 70 Things!