We have been working with a PR/Marketing consultant. We thought we could just hire someone and they would "do everything". That isn't how it works, really.
Constant marketing of library services requires us to "think differently". I have noticed a "mindset" shift in myself. I am constantly looking at how other "industries" are marketing their goods/services.
One of the first things we learned was to keep a notebook on us at all times in order to jot down ideas, examples and stories. We are working to collect stories that will "sell" library services for us: examples of great things that are happening in libraries. Those stories will help us make connections with potential funders and communicate to our current funders the importance of our services.
Rural & Small Libraries and Bookmobile & Outreach Services touch people's lives everyday. Please email me your stories. I would like to add a "stories" link to this site.
rsbroundtable@myway.com
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Bookstore Model
View from the Park Vista Conference Center
An online gathering place for Pennsylvania's rural & small libraries (bookmobiles, too!). rsbroundtable@myway.com
Brainstormed Ideas from you regarding this Roundtable.
- Utilize the Chapters!
- PaLA Annual Conference: session and perhaps a preconference.
- Chapters: training, recruitment for roundtable.
- Conferences: ARSL.
- Don't forget the Outreach component.
- Create a listserv for the Roundtable.
- PaLA: all types of libraries; get academics, special libraries to help us (medical, law...)
- Training Video for library boards; post on youtube.
- Board Member Education: Take a mini-trustee workshop to them.
- Addressing staffing challenges: "circuit riders", substitutes to help cover so directors can attend trainings
- Board Training: value of library staff
- PaTTAN Datacasting??
- Center for the Study of Rural Librarianship (Univ. of Eastern Carolina)
- Partnerships (ARSL)
- WebJunction
- Using new technologies for training (webinars)
- "Thinking Outside the Box"
- Training
Anna Porter Public Library
Bookstore Model
Great Smoky Mountains
View from the Park Vista Conference Center
Rural Library Moo-vers and shakers...
PA Roundtable Survey 2008
ARSL (Association of Rural & Small Libraries)
ABOS (Association of Bookmobiles and Outreach Services)
Helpful Tools for Rural Libraries
Articles
- Newsweek article: "Doughnut-Hole Country".
- Marketing the Small Library. By the State Library of Kansas, 2002.
- Rural Library Survey (ALA Task Force on Rural Libraries)
- Rural Libraries: the Heart of Our Communities
- OCLC: Small & Rural Libraries Discussion Paper
- ALA Rural Library Staff Salary Survey, 2007
- Providers for Lifelong Learning. Dr. Vavrek
1 comment:
Melinda, you have a great blog started! Thank you for working on this. Love the cow, too!
This is not a story exactly - just an idea. For collecting stories, it is important to get circulation desk staff involved, because they are often the ones who receive compliments from patrons about a particular service or program. If at the very moment the circulation staff member hears the compliment they stop everything and ask if the patron will please write that compliment down on a sheet of paper (along with their name and contact information), later the director PR person or volunteer could contact the patron for details. At that time, the information can be written into a feature story and used in a newsletter, on the website or to inform local government officials.
One patron, when I was director of the Lititz Public Library, said she bought her house because it was right next door to the library. This bit of information along with details (and a photograph of her with her grandchildren) became a feature article in a local newspaper and in our newsletter. It was due to the diligence of circulation desk staff members that we received (and could use to our advantage) stories like these.
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