Why Library Cards Make Great Gifts

I like this short video on why library cards make great Christmas gifts. And you could use it for any time of year. A few alternate ideas:

* Library cards fit nicely into a box of candy for Valentine's Day.

* They can brighten up Easter baskets.

* They have no calories! 

* They allow you to research history on an historical observances (national Independence Days, etc.)

* Library cards also make wonderful birthday gifts, and not just for kids--for anyone who wants to learn or explore the world, for people without computers, for movie or music fans, and others.

Kudos to Eastern Counties Regional Library (Bibliotheque Regionale Eastern Counties) in Nova Scotia, Canada, for making this video. Check the recent M Word post on how to make a 1-minute video to get your own started!

To friend or to de-friend ...

"New research from NM Incite, a Nielsen McKinsey company, reveals that there are innumerable factors that help Facebook users decide to add a friend or cull someone from the fold, though knowing someone in real life is the top reason cited for friend-ing someone (82%) and offensive comments are the main reason someone gets the boot (55%).While some Internet interactions are online-only relationships, the most common reason we add friends on Facebook is because we know people in real life." 

So why do you friend someone? I have two Facebook accounts- one for "friends and family" and one for "Friends and work."  For work, I'll friend almost anyone in the library field and authors. I seldom de-friend people but I will "silence" them if they post too often or rare playing too many games. I love hearing people's ideas and will follow quite a few links if they sound interesting. What about you? 

Creating the One Minute Video for Your Library

One of the most difficult things to do is to create short videos (1 minute or less.) The creators of Arizona State University’s “Library Minute”, Matthew Harp, Mimmo Bonanni, and Anali Perry, presented a fantastic workshop outlining the process they use to create their “Library Minute” videos.

In their slide deck, they discuss the three steps they use to produce the short videos:
1. Conceptualization and Planning
2. Recording
3. Editing and Distribution.
This is good stuff! Check out some of the videos they’ve made here.

The Library Minute: Creating Short and Effective Outreach Videos

View more presentations from mharpasu

Building a Social Library

Another great presentation. This time from Slideshare and given by the folks from NY Public Library: Michael Lascarides, Sr. Manager forWeb Initiative; Ben Vershbow, Manager of NYPL Labs; Angela Montefinise, PR and Marketing Director; and Johannes Neuer, eCommunications Manager. I think they are one of the most talented teams out there and what they have to say is valuable for every library- large and small.

Topics covered in the presentation:

• Our Catalog: the Core of the Social Library 
• Crowdsourcing NYPL's Research Collections
• Using Social Media to Reach the Mainstream Media
• Our Framework for Social Media Success 

Angela's section on using social media to reach the mainstream media demonstrates all the best practices we have discussed over the past few years and proves they really work.

• Present compelling stories and the press will call you
• Use the new rules for press releases: send links to blogs and other social media, use images and be creative with text
• Share photos and video clips ( okay granted, they have photos of JayZ when he came, but you have compelling stories to tell that will appeal to your community too)
• Highlight original content on your web/blog - reporters love a good story!
• Highlight your library's unique assets- NYPL has the Biblion app, think about what your library has that is unique
• Conduct exclusive social press meet-ups. I guess this is considered the "new" press conference and would warn that this must be newsworthy and "special" to be effective. 

Run through the entire presentation and be inspired! I know the tendency is to think that since you don't have the resources NYPL has, you can't replicate their ideas, but that's not the case. What they are doing is applying excellent practices, and while you may have to scale them to fit your resources, the concepts are always replicable.

Web 2.0 Expo New York 2011: Building a Social Library

View more presentations from Johannes Neuer

Effective Video Promo for a Presidential Library

This video is an amazing way to promote a special library!!

Tour host, actor Gary Sinise, makes the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum sound so fascinating that even a Democrat would want to visit.

Also notice "the ask" right up front--he makes it clear that the library wants donations and tells 

viewers how to make them. Smart.

However, the page isn't optimized to post the actual video via links. :-(  So you'll have to link over yourself to see it. 

 

http://www.reaganfoundation.org/reagan-library-video-tour.aspx

Proving the Digital Difference that Public Libraries Make

Some of you may remember that, back in February 2011, I posted about a study that I referred to as "worth its weight in gold" for public libraries that needed to prove their value to city and county managers. That study was done by the ICMA, the International City/County Management Association.

Well, Friday, 9 December was an exciting day. I was doing breakout workshops at a library's staff training day and the keynote speaker was none other than the Executive in Residence of the ICMA!! Dr. Ron Carlee gave a great talk about the library-related work that ICMA is doing, and it was punctuated with great advice and good quotes. Let me share it with you.

Ron Carlee understands a lot about government, economics, and budgets—and libraries. He knows that libraries help build sustainable communities that can grow. (This was made abundantly clear in the study, called Maximize the Value of Your Public Library. Download it for free!) In this presentation on "enhancing community relevance in an era of constrained resources," he detailed four main areas where ICMA is working with libraries:  

1. Innovation projects

2. U.S. Impact Survey

3. Framework for Digital Inclusion

4. Edge: Benchmarks for Public Access

I want to concentrate on "digital inclusion" – making sure that everyone has access to technology and help using it. One great point that Carlee made was that three of the biggest employers in the US (Walmart, McDonalds, and Target) only take applications online. So in order for people to get even the most basic jobs, they need computers and the skills to use them. Libraries are making that possible.

"Were it not for the public library, we'd have virtually no digital inclusion at all," Carlee said. Libraries make technology infrastructure available, affordable, and accessible.

Here are a few final bits of his advice:

* To influence decision-makers, we must explain to them the negative consequences of not doing what we do, and also show the positive consequences of providing public technology access. It's not enough to say, "We offer free internet access." We need to show, with data and stories, what can happen if we don't have money to offer it as well as how we improve people's lives when we do offer it.

* Everyone should develop an elevator speech about the impact of libraries!

* We need to understand the budget process and educate the decision-makers. As Carlee concluded, "If you don't do it, it's not gonna get done."

I want to thank everyone at the Loudoun County Public Library in Virginia for inviting me to talk about marketing at their Staff Development Day, and for bringing in Ron Carlee to talk about the big picture and to encourage everyone to help improve it. 

"Seduction is framing what you want to do in terms of what the person wants to do already." - S. Abram

A Good Memory: Eric and Jaap visiting NJ

I was just catching up on some inspirational sites and loved listening to Stephen Abram on TWIL [This Week in Libraries.] For those of you who aren't familiar with TWIL, it's a fantastic weekly video interview program by our Dutch boys- Eric and Jaap. In this session Stephen works his magic talking about the need for libraries to seduce their customers in order to help people connect with us on an emotional level. It's what Kathy and I believe and Stephen explains it beautifully here.




Toward the end of the discussion he touches on the topic of book clubs and I think its worth your time to listen to and then take a day to let your own ideas percolate. Book clubs, book discussion groups or whatever you choose to call them provide a social extension to reading and can produce some pretty amazing results for those who join. Stephen talks about the idea of book clubs for parents helping people to become better parents. I remember a library in NJ that hosted a book club for divorced people that helped people build new and better lives after divorce. Are we doing enough when it comes to creating opportunities and incentives for new book clubs in our libraries and communities?

Take a few minutes to enjoy the discussion. See all the interviews [they are pretty amazing!] at This Week in Libraries


TWIL #53: Stephen Abram (Vice President, Strategic Partnerships and Markets at Gale Cengage) from Jaap van de Geer on Vimeo.

"Yes" or "No" to the new template? You tell us.

So Blogger is offering these new "dynamic" templates where you get to pick the look you like. The questions is, does it work for you or do you prefer the old style we were using? Please give us some feedback! Thanks- Nancy and Kathy

By far the BEST library video ever!

The Finnish Library Association created this video and it is the best I've ever seen.

ERIAL Study: College Students Don't Know Librarians Can Help With Research!

I just read an article in Inside Higher Ed called "What Students Don't Know." It covers a study, done by anthropologists and librarians at Chicago-area universities. This is one study that all librarians really need to read and digest. 

This ERIAL (Ethnographic Research in Illinois Academic Libraries) project is a series of studies conducted at Illinois Wesleyan, DePaul University, and Northeastern Illinois University, and the University of Illinois’ Chicago and Springfield campuses. It won't surprise most of us that ERIAL found that college students don't know how to do good research. What did surprise many of the participating professionals was just how bad students were--and just what they thought of libraries and librarians. 

I'll share a few key quotes to whet your appetite for the full article: 

"This study has changed, profoundly, how I see my role at the university and my understanding of who our students are,” says Lynda Duke, an academic outreach librarian at Illinois Wesleyan. “It’s been life-changing, truly.”

“Students showed an almost complete lack of interest in seeking assistance from librarians during the search process.” Of all the students they observed -- many of whom struggled to find good sources, to the point of despair -- not one asked a librarian for help.

...students seek help from sources they know and trust, and they do not know librarians. Many do not even know what the librarians are there for. "I don't think I would see them and say, 'Well, this is my research, how can I do this and that?' " one senior psychology major told the researchers. "I don't see them that way. I see them more like, 'Where's the bathroom?' " Other students imagined librarians to have more research-oriented knowledge of the library but still thought of them as glorified ushers.

No wonder people keep asking why you need a master's degree to be a librarian...

This is serious evidence for why our profession needs a complete brand makeover. Since that's unlikely to happen, what each of you can do is to concentrate on your own organization. Meet with faculty and teach them what you really do. Promote yourselves as expert researchers who are better than Google and who can find the right info quickly and efficiently. Buy products with this design from Cafe Press and show it off, live it, preach it. 

You can learn more about this age group in the book Dancing With Digital Natives, which I'm going to review in Marketing Library Services newsletter.

Don't wait for students to come to you with questions. Instead, proactively tell them that you're an expert and you're there to teach them how to find information. It's a skill they'll need for the rest of their lives.