Building Bridges Speakers Series: 4 Free Webinars for Public Librarians

Building Bridges Speakers Series

This looks like a great series! It starts this Wednesday, 2 November. Here's the description for the first free webinar:

Bulding Bridges #1:Principles of Advocacy

Wednesday, November 2, 20112:00 pm Eastern/11:00 am Pacific

Register now for this event

Public library professionals know the importance of demonstrating their value to their local communities. Are you looking for inspiration to jump-start your own advocacy efforts? Join us to better understand how ongoing community advocacy supports the vital role your library plays in the community.

Haunted Library Tours!

WSU librarian Lara Cummings spooks students.
Courtesy: WSU News Center

Here's something so cool, I just had to share it. An enterprising employee at Washington State University is giving "haunted" tours of libraries there, complete with some haunted history and eerie stories. 

As the press release explains:

Librarians have a reputation for being quiet and well-behaved. But not Washington State University librarian Lara Cummings during her Haunted Library Tours. She howls. She shrieks. She leaps from behind walls to spook tour members.
"She’s hilarious. Who’d have guessed it could be so fun to learn their way around a library?” said Brie Brenner, an RA [resident assistant] at McEachern Residence Hall, during a recent night tour.

Cummings organized the tours as a way to bring new or apprehensive students (and now, members of the public) inside the Holland and Terrell Libraries, two interconnected buildings that can appear daunting at first, she said. Also, many students think the Internet will provide everything they need for research, which isn’t true.

"And even if it is on the Internet, getting the right information can be like trying to get a sip of water from a fire hydrant. We want students to know there are people here to help them,” said Cummings.

You can read the full press release, which includes a couple of ghost stories, here. 

There's another telling quote near the end of the news story: 

Kariri Kiambuthi, another RA from McEachern Hall, said he found Cummings’ technique of weaving scary stories and colorful explorations enticing.  "One of the guys who came had never been inside this library before. I bet he’ll be back, even without the ghost stories.”

The press release ends, smartly, with info on how to book a tour and when they're available, to drive even more traffic to the libraries. 

Of course, not everyone is into ghost stories, but I share this because it's a great example of a tactic to make libraries more interesting and to portray the buildings and the info professionals in a new light (or in a new darkness - mwa ha ha!!). College students, especially, can be a tough crowd, because they're so overloaded with information and because these young "digital natives" are apt to avoid libraries, thinking they can find anything themselves on the internet. So anything that piques their interest and gives them a positive personal contact can make a difference. Any type of library could do this too, especially during the Halloween or All Saints Day seasons. 

I've heard of public libraries that keep webcams going in an attempt to catch evidence of reputed hauntings. (Here's one from Indiana.) October is obviously the perfect time to play up those angles. 

And just for your own enjoyment, check out this list of Haunted Libraries Around the World from Encyclopaedia Britannica's blog. BOO!


UPDATE: This story was picked up by a local TV station. See the video here.

Building Support for Change

Whenever I speak about marketing, I am constantly asked, "How can I convince my administrators / staffers / colleagues to change the way they work to incorporate these marketing and promotional strategies?" So I couldn't resist attending the session at Internet Librarian 2011 entitled Building Support for Change & Customer Relationships.

The presenter who addressed this aspect most directly was Christina de Castell, manager of online information & news at Vancouver Public Library in Canada. Budget cuts forced her to implement major changes in staffing, workflow, and the physical setup of her floor of VPL.


Without going into all the changes she made, I'd like to share how she convinced staffers to work with her and to support the changes, many of which would affect them greatly. Part of making this work was simply planning ahead. 

• Tell staff that it's OK to try new things and fail.
• Assign all staffers to be on one of the project's "action teams."
• Set goals together; be open and transparent.
• Have brainstorming sessions.
• Invite and listen to feedback.
• Have weekly progress meetings that were informative, but not mandatory.

During this project, de Castell encouraged collaboration and made the planning part of the fabric of people's jobs. When they brainstormed, writing ideas on giant sticky notes that hung on the walls, she left those sticky notes up so everyone could see and ruminate on the ideas. 


The group kept stats for benchmarks early on. After the changes were made, they evaluated usage again, and in a 1-week sample, they had 50% more patrons on the floor of the building where the updates had taken place. Proof that they did, indeed, attract more students!


The bottom line in this change-management story was this: Bring everyone along for the ride. Let them voice opinions and work together to shape the change. Give them a personal stake in the project. All these actions help people to care about what's going on and to accept change more readily.

Advocacy Efforts in California School Libraries

I attended a session on this topic at the Internet Librarian 2011 conference earlier this week. For the full info, see a post I wrote on Info Today's LibConf blog at http://www.libconf.com/2011/10/17/advocacy-activity-in-calif-school-libraries/.

It's hard to accept that something as important as school libraries need to fight for funding and to prove their value, but they do. The Calif School Library Assn is running a campaign that's starting to get some traction. Maybe it will give you ideas to get started in your area.

ALCOP's Inaugural Conference Is a Hit

Attendees first met in the castle's ornate Mirror Room.

A month ago, I wrote a post about the upcoming ALCOP conference, the first meeting of a fledgling organization that's just for marketing & PR folks. This new Association of Communications and Outreach Professionals, or ALCOP for short, was the brainchild of Bob Kieserman and his associates at The Communication Group. For some time, those of us in this area of the library field have had sections in regional, state, and national organizations, but not anything independent that we could belong to without being members of those larger groups. Now Kieserman is starting ALCOP so there's something we can afford to belong to, and so we can move the communications professionals (and amateurs!) forward.

There's a lot I'd like to say about this conference, but let me start by assuring you it was a success. It was held in Arcadia University's Castle Conference Center, a charming historical building where the rooms look more like a palace in Europe than an academic building in Glenside, PA. There were about 60 attendees, and the small size worked well with breakout sessions in four rooms that were all near each other. This made for a cozy atmosphere and lots of networking and meeting people who you'd "known" online for years. 

To get the full gist of the show, go to this site and download the program. There were sessions on topics from giving presentations to working with the media to fundraising. It was great to be in small groups where you could really interact with the presenters and with each other. 

During the 2 days of the meeting, I posted pictures and quick tips in real time over at my Libraries Are Essential Facebook page. Please "Like" the page to get content like this on a regular basis.

On Sunday night, I gave a keynote on Communicating Your Value where I introduced 7 rules for doing it well. We also did a little role-playing to practice proving value, and had lots of laughs in the process.
On Monday morning, longtime marketing guru Chris Olson gave a keynote on Customer Experience Insights that taught the group a lot about "touchpoints" and "brand promises." And I definitely want to explore more about the "customer journey maps" that Chris covered! (That's her silhouette in this photo.)

Kieserman told the enthusiastic attendees that he plans to put up a website shortly, and that he wants to open ALCOP for people to start joining, then elect a leadership, etc. The hope is for the group to do various activities throughout the year and to hold PR-centric events in different U.S. cities to make them accessible and affordable for everyone. 

Stay tuned, because I'll definitely be writing more about this group as it comes together! 

What Do Those Facebook Insights Mean?

I just watched this video from The Nonprofit Facebook Guy. It's a nice clear explanation of what the new Facebook Insights mean. Checking these can show you how many people see and interact with your content on given days. The Insights are a great tool for seeing, at a glance, what types of posts get the most views & interaction. Then you can make other posts more like the popular ones.

You can also see this info written out "in plain English" with illustrations on The Nonprofit Facebook Guy's website. There's lots of other good info there too that helps demystify FB.

FB charts this all for you auto-magically, so make use of the simple but helpful data! And share this post with your colleagues. 

Analytic Marketing Process - How it works

library marketing

Advanced marketing for behavioural campaigns.mp4

I love this simple video. It challenges the traditional thinking - change feelings and you'll change behavior. This articulates the need to provide motivation to get the behavior changes.

so if you were going to motivate someone to use the library, where would you begin? First you must know what their motivational factors are- what matters to them. In the case of teenage smokers, the key motivator seemed to be a desire for romance. So an effective anti-smoking campaign would connect not smoking with having a better chance at love.

There are two types of .... the power of good copy

Many of you probably saw this note on Amazon:

"Dear Customer,
There are two types of companies: those that work hard to charge customers more, and those that work hard to charge customers less. Both approaches can work. We are firmly in the second camp.
We are excited to announce four new products: the all-new Kindle for only $79, two new touch Kindles – Kindle Touch and Kindle Touch 3G – for $99 and $149, and a new class of Kindle – Kindle Fire – a beautiful full color Kindle for movies, TV shows, music, books, magazines, apps, games, web browsing and more, for only $199."

Its great marketing copy - says what needs to be said, without naming the other company and makes the customer feel as though choosing the Kindle is a better choice on sooo many levels.  Its copy that hits Mac where they live- a deeper belief that using a product confirms something more about you. For Mac, Mac users have a certain pride in being mac users. Whether we identify with the rainbow apple (unique) or as a Steve Jobs groupie (geek) or as purists or whatever... people love to say they are Mac users.

Now Amazon users can say they are picking the company that is working hard to save us money - a fair company, the "people's company". If it were politics I could easily guess where this story line would take me. :-) They aren't there yet, but if they continue this path, Amazon will be creating a cult of users who identify who they are with the Kindle.

I'm not opposed to this idea because it fits nicely into a storyline libraries could jump on board with - especially since library users can get books for the Kindle from their public library. And could anyone in the world possibly argue against the idea that that libraries are the epitome of "fairness". If there was a "people's place" where but the library? Smart consumers? They use libraries. You know where I'm going with this- its a great story to add to your library's story.  Why not tie into the whole Kindle ad campaign- they are featuring public libraries on their websites- make the connection with your customers. But most of all, start thinking about your story- does it make peope want to tell the world they use a library?

Deadline Extended: National Library Week Grant for 2012

Just a quick announcement: If you're going to apply to win Scholastic Publishing's National Library Week Grant ($3,000 U.S.!), there's still time. The deadline has been extended until Friday, October 28. 

Learn about applying here.  The 2012 NLW theme will be "You belong @ your library."

For inspiration, read the winning application (PDF) for the previous Scholastic Library Publishing NLW Grant here. It was submitted by Southern State Community College.

How do People Find eBooks to Read?

Saw this on Stephen Abram's blog. Paul Biba, who conducted the poll commented, "I found it interesting that the top two answers accounted for 47% of responses, with the other 53% of answers fragmented across ten other answers. This implies, I think, that in order for authors to reach the maximum number of readers, it requires them to orchestrate multiple touch points." Same goes for libraries, yes?

http://stephenslighthouse.com/2011/10/04/how-ebook-buyers-discover-ebooks/

Are You Making One of These 5 Marketing Mistakes?

I found this post on the Top Five Marketing Mistakes Companies Make on the Go-To-Market Strategies page. Number 1, especially, fits pretty closely with my own philosophy of marketing, most of which you can find in the Cycle of True Marketing.

Here are the five mistakes the site lists:

1. Marketing without a strategy in place

2. Being inconsistent with your brand

3. Not integrating marketing with sales efforts

4. Marketing something you don't actually deliver

5. Not using the marketing mix effectively

Numbers 1, 2, and 5 are most applicable to libraries. What GTMS says for #1 is especially relevant to us: "The fact is, for marketing efforts to succeed, you must define a target market segment where your product has the most relevance and the best competitive advantage! Most of us can simply not afford to market everything to anyone with the delusion we are the only option for our customers to consider."

The Go-To-Market Strategies site explains fixes for all the problems above. Check to see what you could improve.