Move that book!

From the Publicity Hound comes this great story....


When the Mount Kisco Public Library in Mount Kisco, New York
needed to move its entire collection of books to a temporary
location, it didn't call in a professional moving company.

What fun is that?

Instead, it created "The Great Mount Kisco Book Race," in which
17 teams of volunteers competed against each other on Saturday.
Each team moved a 150-pound pile of books from the main library
on Main Street, up a hill, to the temporary library at the Maple
Avenue Community Center. The village will tear down the library
and build an $8 million library twice as big on the same site.

The teams, from the Boy Scouts and Rotary to local church groups,
paid a $250 entry fee. They met on Saturday morning in a balloon-
filled room at the public library. Moments later, the 17
teams--100 volunteers in all--were throwing piles of books into
cardboard boxes, loading them onto rolling carts and heading out
the door.

The library made the race even more challenging by forcing each
team to stop at certain points along the route and answer
literary questions such as "What is the problem in 'Romeo and
Juliet?'" before being allowed to continue. And to make the race
even more difficult, contestants had to struggle with a
challenging word game.

The Mount Kisco Lions Club won the trophy. The event raised
$20,000 for the library foundation. The Mount Kisco News covered
it,.

Isn't that clever? The contest had all the elements of a
successful special event:

--It involved many groups from throughout the community.

--It had people, color and motion--the three things that
virtually ensure media coverage.

--It included two fun contests that tied into books.

--Because the event was so much fun, people will be talking about
it for months.

That's what I call "building the buzz." And it's a critical
element of special events. Thanks to Publicity Hound and Jeanette
Benway of Mount Kisco for getting the story out!
library marketing