What is 23 Things on a Stick?

If you've just run into this blog, or are not part of libraryland in Minnesota, you may be wondering what this blog is all about. Everything good to eat at the Minnesota State Fair is "on a stick," and it has become a catch phrase for anything "Minnesotan." 23 Things on a Stick is the Minnesota twist on the Library Learning 2.0 program developed by Helene Blowers, Public Services Technology Director at The Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenberg County, and adopted or adapted by many other libraries and organizations since then.

23 Things on a Stick was developed by the seven multitype, multicounty library systems in Minnesota as part of the staff development offered in their regions. The Minnesota Historical Society Library is part of the Metronet system. Metronet is one of the seven state-funded multitype library networks created by the Minnesota Legislature in 1979. Unlike the regional public library systems, which were also established that same year, the multitype networks serve all types of libraries—school, public, college and university, and special libraries—in their respective regions. Metronet's region is the seven county metropolitan area including the cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul.

The folks behind 23 Things on a Stick have identified the 23 Things to do over the course of the program, but each person decides when to do them—and the amount of time to spend and the depth of the exploration. Participation is documented by setting up and maintaining a blog (Thing 1).

Each Thing will show participants one or more Web tools. These Web 2.0 tools are bringing library staff and our patrons in touch with the entire world through social networking, video, audio, and gaming sites. There are many sites to explore and tools to experiment with that will encourage creative ways to use them in our libraries.