Userful Helps Nonprofits to Secure Funding

Picking this up from an Information Today, Inc. Weekly News Digest:

Userful Corp. announced the "Secure Your Funding" initiative to help libraries, community colleges, and other public sector organizations apply for and receive Broadband Technology Opportunity Program stimulus money.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) has allocated $7.2 billion to stimulate the development of broadband infrastructure. This includes a minimum of $200 million to expand public computing-center capacity. The federal government began accepting applications for the first $4 billion of funding on July 14. The application period for this round will close on Aug. 14.

Read the full news story here.

Kathy's Monday at ALA: Legislative Advocacy and John Cotton Dana Awards

On Monday, I sat in on a wonderful program on legislative advocacy. I don't recall seeing anything like this at past ALAs, but hey, I could've easily missed them in the enormous preliminary programs. This was one serious session -- in fact, it was a 4-hour-long ACRL President's Program. (ACRL is the Association of College and Research Libraries.)

The main speaker was Stephanie Vance, who bills herself as an "advocacy guru." I was skeptical when I first saw that, but boy did she live up to the moniker! (If you ever have a chance to hear her present, GO.) I heard lots of great info even though I couldn't stay for the whole thing. (You can read my original post here.) If you're in an academic library, you'll want to read up on ACRL's official legislative agenda. And one of the main goals of this session was to get people to sign up to be legislative advocates. You can learn how to do that here. It's important! Without your input, most legistors simply don't understand how libraries work or why they still matter. We need to inform them!


Then, just in time for afternoon tea....
The ceremony for the John Cotton Dana Library Public Relations Awards is always a posh affair. This year's event at the Ritz Carlton was no exception.

Back in February, shortly after the 2009 winners were announced, Nancy posted their names. The JCD Awards jury does its judging at ALA's midwinter meeting each January, then announces the winners so they have the opportunity to arrange to be at the annual conference in the summer to accept their awards.

It always renews my faith in library marketing to hear what these smart, innovative librarians have done and to know that library champion H.W. Wilson understands the importance of this work. As someone who is personally and professionally invested in making sure that librarians learn about true marketing so they can continue to serve society, I want to thank The H.W. Wilson Company and The H.W. Wilson Foundation yet again for sponsoring these important awards (this is the 63rd year!) and for letting me attend to cover them. And when I say "sponsor," I mean it -- each winner gets $5,000 to further their marketing and promotional efforts. (Yes, that's five thousand -- for each of 5 or 6 winners.)

You can read all about the contest on Wilson’s website. Go learn more about these award-winning projects and get inspired about things you can do!

What a wonderful ALA Conference. If you couldn't attend, or you did but couldn't make it to these events, I hope these posts help fill in gaps in your knowledge.

Kathy's Sunday at ALA, Part 2: Media Advice and Blog Salon

The main session I went to on Sunday was How To Do Business With the Media ... and Win presented by Dave Baum, longtime media personality and reporter. Baum impressed, entertained, and informed me, which is not an easy feat. I wrote a meaty post on it here, and anyone who's involved with media communication should read it. And if you ever get a chance to see Dave give this training, you need to be there. Don't simply consider it -- GO. His handout alone was worth the price of ALA attendance.

One skill that's very very important to understand is how to respond to a negative question from a reporter. The main lesson is to never repeat the negative from the question. The ancillary is to realize that, when you hear news reports (esp TV), you never hear the original question -- the reply alone is broadcast. I'll borrow a good example from Baum's handout:

Q: Senator, how long have you been stealing campaign funds?

Wrong A: I have not been stealing campaign funds!

Right A: My campaign ... allocation of funds are within the guidelines of the law...

You see, you must always reframe the question so the answer is a positive. If you don't -- even if you answer the exact question, as in the first response above -- you can sound quite guilty. Some reporters (not all!) phrase questions this way to try to trap their interviewees. Sometimes it just comes out that way. In either case, you need to be aware of how responses are edited and which quotes will be the most enticing for the media audience. Being prepared and practiced at this is much easier (and safer) than having to think on your feet.

My Sunday ended at the OCLC-sponsored Blog Salon, an open event at the lovely Hilton Chicago where library bloggers, tweeters, and other social media communicators could gather to meet each other in person. (In this photo, Marydee Ojala, who writes for the Infotoday Blog and ONLINE Insider, talks with Steven Bell from Designing Better Libraries.) I enjoyed catching up with some fellow Jersey bloggers from Library Garden, and also had the chance to match real human faces with blog titles. What a treat!

A special feature of this year's Blog Salon was given away by the subtitle: Shenanigans with the Shanachies. Yep, our Dutch friends Erik, Jaap, and Geert were there (they were brought to ALA to speak at the LITA President's Program), and in true Shanachie style, they did some filming at the salon. My husband Michael and I were ambushed for a short interview, which you can see here.

OCLC Blog Salon:Shenanigans with Shanachies from Jaap van de Geer on Vimeo.

If you've been following along with the Shanachie adventures, you'll know that they're about to embark on yet another tour later this month: Ireland! Stay tuned for more news from these globe-trotting library inspirations.

Now I think you'll see why this was my biggest ALA day ever: a thrilling morning book launch, a great afternoon of training, and an evening filled with fellow bloggers, highlighted by the Shanachies. What could be better?

Kathy's Sunday at ALA, Part 1: Swap 'n' Shop

Now on to Sunday, which was by far my biggest ALA day this year. Maybe my biggest ALA day ever. There was too much good stuff to fit into just one post, so I'll break it up to make it easier to read.

Savvy marketers know that the annual Swap 'n' Shop is the biggest open event for them. LLAMA's Public Relations Management Section (PRMS) puts this together every year. There are several parts to the Swap:

* The heart of the Swap is a huge display of all sorts of promo materials (annual reports, brochures, etc.) that librarians donate so that others can see them and even take them home as samples.

* The second part of the main floor is the vendor tables, where PR-related orgs (such as consultants and promo-product manufacturers) offer advice and giveaways for attendees.

* The third but not-least-important area is set aside for awards presentations. This is where the Swap committee gives its Best of Show awards to librarians that have submitted their proudest PR materials for this annual contest. [SPECIAL NOTE: Nancy Dowd, Blog Mistress of The M Word, won a Best of Show for one of her NJ State Library Campaigns! I regret that I couldn't get away from my table to see the presentation. Congrats Partner!!]



For a few years now, I've had a table at the Swap where I give away sample issues of Marketing Library Services newsletter. I also benefit a lot from seeing what libraries are producing and from chatting with other like-minded folks. This year, however, the Swap was super-sized for me because I had arranged to launch my book there! This was the first time that The Accidental Library Marketer was available in public, and it was my very first book signing!!

I was thrilled with all the interest that the book drew, and was delighted to talk with many of the good people who were kind enough to ask me to sign their hot-off-the-press copies. As far as Sally Lederer (Swap chair who allowed me to have the signing there) and I could figure, this was the first book launch / signing ever at Swap 'n' Shop. Exciting!!!

One of my Infotoday Blog teammates was kind enough to come by to cover my happy event, and you can see her post here. (If you're interested, you can learn all about the book at my new website.)

This year's Swap was as successful as ever, with more than 800 people coming in during the 2.5 hours it was open. Bravo to the Swap committee on another successful year!

Kathy's Saturday at ALA

I'm finally getting back to blogging about marketing-related sessions at last week's American Library Association conference. By way of explanation, while I was in Chicago I put my full blogging power into the Infotoday Blog, run by library publisher Information Today, Inc., because that is my "real" (read: "paying") employer, and blogging for them was an assigned part of my job. The way we four Infotoday bloggers split up our coverage, I was still able to choose most of the marketing-related sessions I wanted to see. It was nice working with a team where each member could concentrate on his or her own specialty, and we worked hard to write substantive posts in order to help all those who couldn't attend in person. So if you haven't looked at any of the coverage there, I urge you to check it out. I won't be repeating all of the marketing / promo stuff I already wrote there, but rather referring back to some of it and adding a few extra thoughts and photos here.


The first session I attended on Saturday was on Targeted Marketing. I was thrilled to see a talk devoted to that topic, and I obviously wasn't alone because the room was packed and people were sitting on the floor by the time it began. The session wasn't about how to look at your user base and divide them into target groups. It was more about how to plan a campaign (set goals, get buy-in, evaluate afterward -- the usual stuff) to tell folks that the library wasn't what it used to be. Then when it came time to create different advertisements to appeal to different target markets, both libraries involved in this session were lucky enough to have gotten pro-bono work from PR company Ogilvy. Great for them, but they couldn't speak much about that part of the campaign. Also, neither campaign had yet been completed or evaluated, so they couldn't talk about those vital aspects.

However, Peter Persic did say one thing that I especially liked about library value. In doing a sort of SWOT analysis of library competitors, he presented a 4-part SWOT diagram (picture a big "plus" sign with info in each of the 4 open quadrants) where he placed four different needs that libraries fulfill:

* Libraries are known for Information. This need is also filled by Google.
* Libraries are known for Reading. This need is also filled by Barnes & Noble.
* Libraries are known as Cultural Centers. This need is also filled by museums.
* Libraries are know as Community Centers. This need is also filled by Starbucks.

However, he pointed out, the library "is uniquely positioned at the nexus of all four needs," he said, circling the intersection at the middle of the plus sign. So he encouraged listeners to "promote the nexus." Nice thought!

The second session I went to on Saturday was about Partnering with Service Organizations, something that I always recommend and often speak about. I found the 2 hours incredibly worthwhile, and encourage you to read the full post here.



Each panelist shared specific info about an organization the she belongs to, so listeners learned a lot about the Rotary, Lions, Kiwanis, and Altrusa, along with a bit from the moderator about Soroptimists International. (I had never even heard of the last two.) Everyone encouraged librarians not to hesitate to ask for funding, explaining that these organizations "have money they have to give away" for small things on a regular basis. These dollars could be yours, just for asking!

All the speakers encouraged librarians to join these groups, not only to have great professional networking opportunities, but also to find personal satisfaction within orgs that share some of the same values as libraries have. It does often cost money to belong, but oftentimes your library employer will foot the bill especially after you demonstrate the value of membership.

Greetings from ALA in Chicago

Kathy says: Greetings from ALA where my first full day was already packed with interesting marketing / promo sessions. While I hate to ever send anyone away from The M Word, I must ask that you go over to the Info Today blog to see what I've posted about today's adventures. That is, at least until I have time to add some original content here...

This is one of the sessions I blogged about there:


Tomorrow (Sunday) will be another action-packed day that will include my book signing at the Swap & Shop, info on dealing with the media, and an appearance at the OCLC Blog Salon where the special guests will be our friends the Shanachies.
:-)

Improve Customer Input with Incentives

Marketing begins with understanding what your customers need. One way to get that information is through online surveys. If you've tried that approach and haven't gotten a great response you may want to try to offer an incentive. It doesn't take a lot of money to provide an incentives to have people give you input. Tech Soup offered a chance to win a $25 gift certificate from Amazon just to fill out a survey. To be effective make sure the reward speaks to the people you want to hear from. Teens might want iTune cards, Best Buy dollars or a free pizza. 

What I love about the posting below is the way they invite people to take a second step by agreeing to an interview [highlighted in red]. Replicate the approach for yourselves and see how it works. 

Disaster Preparedness and Relief Survey: Win an Amazon Gift Card!

Have you ever checked out TechSoup's Disaster Planning and Recovery Toolkit? It's a good place to turn for any organization whose tech infrastructure has suffered a disaster, natural or otherwise. We're overhauling the manual and toolkit, and we need your help!

If you have ten minutes to spare, please take our Emergency Preparedness Survey for Nonprofits and Public Libraries. Even if you haven't been impacted by a disaster, your input is still important. We want to learn what steps organizations are going through to protect their computers and data, even if they've been fortunate enough not to experience a disaster.

The survey is completely confidential, but if you are interested in sharing more information, we're also looking for people to interview about their own experiences in disaster preparation and recovery. The survey will give you the opportunity to express your interest in further participation.

We will select one respondent at random to receive a $25 Amazon.com gift certificate. Respond by July 10 to be eligible for the drawing. Please forward this survey to your colleagues at nonprofits, NGOs, or libraries. The survey is open to organizations anywhere in the world.

Information Literacy in the Age of YouTube

Fantastic!!

Information Literacy in the Age of YouTube

View more presentations from M.j. D’elia.

Twitterface: A viral marketing concept

Great PPT on Twitter...

Twitterface: A viral marketing concept

View more presentations from Ara Pehlivanian.

Resume infographic

Resume infographic, originally uploaded by Bart Claeys.

I love this. Doesn't it get your creativity going?Makes me want to create a new resume.

Library Marketing should start at the birth of an idea

meeting room, originally uploaded by obLiterated.

Photo: The Suspended Meeting Room at Brisbane City Council Library

Marketing your library should never start when the program or service is already developed. Marketing needs to be an integral part of the development of everything you do. Nowhere is that demonstrated better than in the recently released video by the Shanachies on their Australian Tour. Jaap van de Geer posted the HD film of their visit to the Brisbane City Council Library and it is well worth your while to watch it. You will be inspired. Here are some of the things you’ll hear about:

The message is clear that this library believes it’s role is to provide opportunities for lifelong learning and recognizes that not all learning comes from books. But what is relevant for those looking to market libraries is that the following sections are all created with a "marketing eye" by responding to the needs of their customers.


1. They have a “Fast Section” where people can get fast service.

· Fast information

· Fast book returns

· Fast checkout

· Staff only work at small service points to keep staff roving service they have gotten rid of the “fortress” service desk



2. There is a newsroom with big screens playing sports, news and finance information. I love that it opens earlier than other sections of the library so people can have a cup of coffee without having to open the rest of library. Not only would our customers love that kind of service, can you imagine the positive press you’d get for such a cost-saving idea?


3. The “Noise Floor” not only provides a place to make noise there is a sound and vision section where acoustic concerts take place. On Sunday mornings musician conduct workshops and then give an afternoon concert. They even rent out the room for performers so they can give concerts.


4. The Developer’s Lounge provides a meeting space for the people who are building the city. The library supports them with a place to meet with free wi-fi and access to news and they have contact with library’s customers.


5. For the children’s section the library commissioned a well-known Australian children’s author to tell the story of the city, Home. The library owns the artwork and used it in the library to create an environment where children are “in the book”.


6. The most incredible spot in the entire library is the Sports section where a huge screen runs sports shows. Here is where you really understand what a library that is committed to providing information in the formats that is relevant to its customers looks like. They have seen an increased usage of young men 18- 35 . And why not? There are screens with sports and lifestyle shows, gaming stations, computers with Internet connections and graphic novels. Everything men love, in the library.


What struck me was that the library didn’t have to advertise this section at all- usage increased simply by word of mouth. Marketing starts by finding out what our customers need and want; knowing the way they want to to receive information and then giving them products that fulfill those needs. Brisbane gets that. They don't ask their customers to adapt to them, they are adapting to their customers. They have created spaces that are relevant to people’s lives and provide content in the medium they prefer and in turn their customers are spreading the word for them. They recognize that each generation has it’s own preferred medium to gather information and they provide content accordingly.


The interview provides much more about this amazing library. Watch all of Jaap’s videos on Vimeo.

Libraries are more than just places to learn to read ...

Great news report from Ohio. 

The big red box comes to Princeton!

From Janie Herman's FB post:
"We are a pilot site at PPL for having Red Box services to supplement the library collection. This gives our library customers 24 hour access to the newest DVDs, means that we do not have to buy as many copies of new releases (thus saving money), and we can a cut of the money from having the Red Box on site that we can use for collection development. Win, win, win -- at least we hope so. Pilot projects are exciting."

Drunkenomics - The Story of Bar Stool Economics

This was the $5000 winner of the Fuze storytelling contest. I'll bet you wished you had entered your story. :-)

Drunkenomics - The Story of Bar Stool Economics

View more presentations from slides2407.