Inspire... a healthy social network

Just came across this neat social network called, Inspire that connects patients, families, friends, caregivers and health professionals for health and wellness support. Inspire works with trusted health partners to build safe and secure health and wellness groups.

Their mission: "We believe no one should have to go it alone, we all need a safe place to talk, and we can help one another." More about our work.

Cool. This is a great concept for community building and for those of you are are marketing health sites, a valuable link you'll want to include.

OCLC: National Marketing Campaign May Hike Library Funding

Found this post from American Libraries. Anything we didn't know? Not really but this will be a great report for anyone looking to get staff buy-in to market your library.

"From Awareness to Funding: A Study of Library Support in America, a new report to be issued by OCLC, examines the potential of a national marketing campaign to increase awareness of the value of public libraries and the need for support for libraries at local, state, and national levels.

With funding from a $1.2-million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, OCLC partnered with the research and advertising agency Leo Burnett to conduct the research, targeting residents of U.S. communities with populations under 200,000 (90% of the nation’s public libraries serve such communities) and elected officials with responsibility for local library funding.
Among the findings from the report:

A library’s most committed funding supporters are not its heaviest library users.
Perceptions of librarians are an important predictor of library funding support.
Voters who see the library as “transformational” as opposed to “informational” are more likely to increase taxes in its support.
Increasing support for libraries may not necessarily mean a trade-off with financial support for other public services.

Targeting marketing messages to the right segments of the voting public is key to driving increased support for U.S. public libraries.

“For many public libraries, the need to grow awareness and mindshare is intensifying as library annual operating funds are not keeping pace with the services and resources needed to meet their mission,” says OCLC Vice President for the Americas Cathy De Rosa in her introduction to the report, adding that the results of the survey are promising: “Findings suggest that there is sufficient, but latent, support for increased library funding across the voting population. There is evidence that a national library support campaign could make a difference.”

Upon its release, the document will be available on OCLC’s website. De Rosa and Jenny Johnson, OCLC executive director of branding and marketing services, were scheduled to give a presentation on the report June 28 at the American Library Association’s Annual Conference at the Anaheim (Calif.) Convention Center."

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NY Times Tip of the Week July 3, 2008

NYTimes tip of the week July 3 2008.jpg, originally uploaded by nancydowd.

"Summer is a great time to catch up on your reading. You might even be able to look up books available at your library — before you leave the house — with the WorldCat database at www.worldcat.org. Type in a title and follow the screens to supply your address so you can find the book in the library nearest you. WorldCat, a global network that logs 1.2 billion items, can also look for DVDs and CDs and has plug-ins available for Firefox and Facebook."

Introducing the digital version of the paperback

Get ready... new technology that will change how we live continues to evolve... from the New York Times:

"Consumers like large displays on the mobile devices they use for reading an e-mail message or an e-book, but they also like to tuck those devices into their pockets. But the bigger the screen on a cellphone or an e-reader, the sooner it outgrows pocket size.

Now a hallmark feature of these screens — their rigidity — is changing. New technologies are developing that make displays flexible, foldable or even as rollable as papyrus, so that large screens can be unfurled from small containers.

One new mobile device, the Readius, designed mainly for reading books, magazines, newspapers and mail, is the size of a standard cellphone. Flip it open, though, and a screen tucked within the housing opens to a 5-inch diagonal display. The screen looks just like a liquid crystal display, but can bend so flexibly that it can wrap around a finger.

Because the Readius is pocket-sized, but has a generous, supple screen, people with five minutes to spare in a taxi, bus or subway can use the dead time to open it, read a page or two of a book and then return the device to a shirt pocket, said Karl McGoldrick, the chief executive of Polymer Vision, the company in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, that created the device." FULL STORY