Creating a technology petting zoo

Presenters: Annette Gaskins and Maurice Coleman

Slides for this presentation are available here.

The speakers developed a training workshop called the Technology Petting Zoo, so that Harford County staff could test drive various technologies. They also blogged about their experiences.

Staff were divided into small groups and cycled through various stations throughout the library. There were stations devoted to:

Wikis/Open Source software
Gaming
Streaming media
IM/MySpace
Blogs
MP3s and players

While Annette and Maurice offered some info about the success of the program and the staff response, the focus of their presentation was a how-to for other systems who were interested in developing similar programs.

They explained their planning process, logistics, corporate partnerships, staff responsibilities, signage, troubleshooting and the importance of scheduling on the day of the event.

I was excited to see five other FCPL staff members in attendance and I hope they left as enthusiastic about the idea as I did. I would love to host something similar for our staff--maybe at our newest regional library in August, right before they open to the public. It would be an opportunity for staff around the system to see the new building.