PLA Blog

Via an email alert from our friends over in the Public Relations and Marketing Section of the Library Administration & Management Association (LAMA):

Libraries of all types and sizes, share your creative, great public relations efforts with your colleagues! Gain international exposure for your library’s marketing and promotional items by sending them to “Swap & Shop: Hot Ideas for Cool PR,” at ALA Annual Conference in Anaheim.

The annual Swap & Shop event will be held from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Sunday, June 29, in the Special Events Area in Hall D of the exhibit floor at the Anaheim Convention Center. ALA attendees will have the opportunity to fill their free Swap & Shop tote bag with the very best samples of library public relations (annual reports, newsletters, reading promotions, and more). More than 950 library professionals attended Swap & Shop in 2007.

Your items must be received by Friday, June 20. All shipments (please send 50-200 copies of your items) MUST have a Swap & Shop Shipping label – [please see the link at the bottom of this post for the shipping label download].

We will display your materials proudly at Swap & Shop, which will also feature the winners of the Best of Show contest (a juried selection of the best PR materials produced in the past year), the John Cotton Dana Awards for outstanding achievement in library public relations, PR Makeovers of an academic and public library, and more.

Questions? For more information contact: Luke Vilelle, the 2007-08 Swap & Shop Committee Chair, at 540-362-6592 or .

See also:

• Swap & Shop Shipping Label (.pdf)
• Swap & Shop Printable Entry Form (.pdf)
  
• Swap & Shop FAQ (.pdf)

This Sunday afternoon program was intended as a follow-up for individuals who had participated in Webjunction’s Spanish Language Outreach workshops. Although I was not one of those lucky few, I decided to attend the session to learn more about it, and I am very glad I did, as the information provided could be useful to any librarian who hopes to work in a diverse community.

Yolanda Cuesta presented the first segment of the program on marketing to Spanish speakers. Yolanda’s advice was practical and very useful:

- Work with community leaders to start the needs assessment for the community; try to create a personal connection so that you will come to be trusted in the community. It is very important in this community to establish personal relationships and rely more on personal contact via phone or in person, since email or mass mailings may not be as relevant in this culture.
- Develop the “library as a brand that is culturally relevant”; a place that provides services that the community needs and wants-a place for getting help, for entertainment and fun, for learning, and for family activities- vs. the traditional promotion of the library as a provider of books and information resources.
- In the first marketing stage, translate the library card application and basic brochures into Spanish. Jump right into marketing, without over thinking it: send press releases to Spanish media outlets and start to participate in community events, where you can hand out information about the library and meet more of the leaders.
- In the second stage, start to realize the differences within the community itself, including age, country of origin, degrees of acculturation, and marital status. These factors all have a great impact on the services you provide and how they should be marketed. Also during this stage, start adapting traditional library services, such as story hours or computer classes, for the Spanish speaking community, and begin to experiment with marketing at local gathering spots such as grocery stores or pharmacies. Additionally, you should never undervalue the importance of word-of-mouth marketing.
- The third marketing stage follows a more holistic approach, where you look at the entire library and the Hispanic community in more depth, deciding which specific segments of the community you would like to target. It is hard to make this decision, since selecting one segment means you will not reach everyone, but these are necessary (hard) choices that will help the services grow well and target the marketing more specifically. During this stage, the library should also try to increase its presence in the community by organizing community events such as Dia de los niños.
- Once you have completed this process, you can start over, targeting a different portion of the community: look and learn who makes up the community, determine their needs and develop a program. It is important to keep the process going and not neglect it after the first try, as continuity is an important factor for establishing trust in the community. As the projects progress, continue to make inroads with community leaders to get a better understanding and form partnerships.

The session continued with a few stories from individuals who had participated in the workshop and the way they applied the training to their libraries. John Tull from Wallens Ridge State Prison in Virginia described the progress he has made at his prison library, including the translation of signs and procedural documents into Spanish and collaboration with the ESOL classes. Previous program participants then broke up into discussion groups to brainstorm about their different outreach projects.

To learn more about the workshops and find materials about the topic, visit Webjunction’s Spanish Outreach page: http://webjunction.org/do/Navigation?category=10555

I attended the Programming Not Just for Boomers: Programming and Services program on Saturday, June 23. The program was aimed at adult programs for patrons 70+ years old.

A few highlights:
•Take an “old” idea and put a new spin on it, such as…
oBasic computer training (introduction to internet)
oHow to buy tickets online
oHow to email kids and grandkids (and set up an email account)
oTrain seniors in new technology (blogs, etc.)
oHow to use digital photography
oGaming – Wii festival and tournaments
oSocial networking (Seniornet or Eons) (http://www.seniornet.org / http://www.eons.com/)

•Other ideas:
oFilm and book discussions
oMovement: basic exercise, dance
o2nd careers, resumes for 70+ group
oFinancial security, recently retired
oFilm program, e.g. A Miss Marple film theme
oConsumer health
oLocal history
oGenealogy- create a genealogy club, teach online resources
oNostalgia programming
oOld basics: creating writing (could also use with blogs), poetry (open house program @ library)
oBiggest draw: music!
oGrandparents raising grandkids
oPrograms on coping with loss
oOther ideas: http://www.libraryolderadults.blogspot.com/

•Programs should be:
oEngaging, interactive
oAllow people to share, discuss, reminisce (they like what’s familiar)
oGet people involved, use their mental capabilities (helps keep them young)
oServe refreshments (this works with people of all ages!)

•Programming needs a gender balance (not just for women)

•Marketing
otraditional (print, papers)
oreceipt printers
oflyers, calendars, newsletters in library
ochurch bulletins
othis is the last generation that is print-oriented

Sunday was a very busy day full of programs.

Nancy Pearl
First I arrive bright and early to see Nancy Pearl speak. It was fascinating to hear how each of her books came into being, especially her lastest book, Book Crush. She gave some suggestions of books for children and teens such as :
Sunshine by Robin McKinley
Alex Rider Series by Anthony Horowitz
The Paperboy by Pete Dexter
Millicent Min, Girl Genius by Lisa Lee
Each Little Bird that Sings by Deborah Wiles
The Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken
The Great Good Thing by Rod Townley
Ragweed by Avi
The Teacher’s Funeral by Richard Peck
Thirsty by MT Anderson
Feed by MT Anderson
Looking for Normal by Betty Monthei
Voyage of the Dawn Treader by CS Lewis

Off the Chain: Reader’s Advisory for Exploding Genres
I really enjoyed this program. I won’t go into too many details because one of my fellow bloggers have done a great job detailing the program. I know that RUSA/PLA CODES will be having the handouts from their program on their websites. I found the program very interesting and has given me more authors and books to add to my list of books to read. I liked the many ways of finding out about new literature online, such as lit blogs and email lists as well as MySpace.

English Only: Censorship and its Impact on Latino Children and Young Adults in Schools and Public Libraries
I came into this program about half way through but I am glad I did. This program was given by AFL REFORMA. I missed the presentation part, but I did come in just as they started the discussion groups for different types of libraries. The public library discussion group was led by Rose Trevino. This gave people from different library systems a chance to ask questions and talk about how their library systems have their foreign languages materials placed in the collection and any programming that they have in foreign languages. Suggestions were also given on how to start a collection or to grow your current collection.

Future Friends: Marketing Reference and User Services to Generation X
This program was given by RUSA RSS. The handouts for this program will also be posted on RUSA’s blog. First the presenters went into defining Generation X and the facts about this generation. They then presented what this particular generation are looking for when it comes to services and potential segments of this generation. After defining Generation X, the presentation then went into how this would pertain to advertising to this generation and the different stages to planning advertising.
The next part of this program had St. Charles Library system in Illinois talk about their programs that they have for 20- and 30-somethings’ as well how they market those programs. They also gave examples of different programs, such as a cooking for 1 or 2 program, white elephant exchange, creating a safe online presence, a course on wine, and an history crawl of the town. Then they followed with some of the challenges that they have had with marketing as well as what they have learned.
Following this presentation was another presentation on the Young Friends of the Kansas City Public Library a.k.a BooksEnds. They went over what the group was and also how they marketed to their Generation X population.

Final Thoughts on ALA Annual Conference 2007
Unfortunately this was my last day at the conference. After attending different programs on Sunday, I took the time to go to the Library School Reunion Event at the Rennaissance Mayflower Hotel. It was great being able to see some fellow alumni from University of South Florida along with some of the professors that I had taken classes from. It was a good way to end my last day at the conference. I have had a blast at this year’s Annual Conference in Washington, D.C. I am looking forward to the next time I can attend an Annual Conference. I have found out a lot of useful information to take back to my library. I also have had a great time blogging about my experiences and the different programs that I have attended. So it’s been fun and I hope all those staying through Tuesday ave a great rest of conference. This is Catherine Moffatt signing off.

This workshop, hosted by the California Library Association Literacy Section, brought together a roomful of highly motivated people to discuss literacy programs in libraries. My career before library science was in linguistics and TESL. I have taught basic writing and sociolinguistics, understand basic literacy issues, and have had exposure to the adult literacy program in my area called ATLAS run by the local adult and community education center, not the library. So I felt right at home with this group though I missed the morning session, “Trailblazers and the Pioneers who Followed: Discovering the Role for Literacy in Libraries,” presenting the 20 year history of literacy services in libraries around the country by leaders who were there.

In the afternoon, Joan Frye Williams, Library Futurist, explained why in 2006 the California State Library scrapped its literacy at the library marketing strategies of 20 years to start all over. They surveyed over 200 volunteers tutors and students and concluded that their current publicity efforts were not effective in getting people to “step up to the plate and participate.” The reasoning behind the change and the new approach they’ve initiated is forthcoming.

The second afternoon session featured an expert in volunteer coordination and management, Carla Lehn. Carla is a hugely motivating speaker, who massaged us with true-life stories, words of wisdom gleaned through years of working at nonprofits managing the volunteer resources, and inspirational best practices for finding and keeping your volunteers. Of most interest to me was how to write meaningful volunteer job descriptions organized from the standpoint of the volunteer job seeker, not the employer. For example: subsections include Importance of Position–what are significant outcomes brought about by this position, Qualifications–lists of skills, attitudes, knowledge necessary for the job, Responsibilities—what is expected of the volunteer, Training Provided—volunteers get training, Benefits of Volunteering—positive outcomes from serving, Time Commitments—numbers of hours and months expected, and Grounds for Termination—(yes, you can fire a volunteer). Carla had us writing meaningful descriptions, gave us a pack of job descriptions from libraries all over California, and a copy of her purple book called Volunteer Involvement in California Libraries: Best Practices.

The final day session Valerie Reinke explained the difference between outputs and outcomes and the importance of that difference in “Outcomes: Making the Case for Literacy Services.” Outputs are quantifiable data, the how much and how many statistics that libraries love to collect—circulation, cardholders, holdings, while outcomes are qualitative descriptions of successes in terms lives changed and goals achieved, not through numbers, but through stories that show increased knowledge and changed behaviors. She found that numbers without contexts do nothing to showcase the successes in literacy programs, and when looked at within the context of the library makes literacy programs the first to suffer in hard times because of their comparatively small numbers of people served. This led her to realize that library literacy programs lacked the verbiage to define outcomes according to their own paradigms and left them vulnerable to being defined by others in unfavorable terms. “We have to define ourselves and not let others define us for us.”

At the closing session Taylor Willingham helped us have a conversation about our visions of the future of literacy services in libraries. Starting with Gandhi’s dictum, “Be the change you want to see,” Taylor encouraged us to think about why this literacy symposium was called Mining Gold? She asked us to take a journey into the future and imagine us meeting again in 10 years, 2017. What will we be saying about our literacy programs? We get there from here by right now thinking abut the change you want to see and being that change!! Isn’t this true in all aspect of life?

Kristin Yiotis
SLIS, SJSU
ALASC Chair 2006-07

I’m a SLIS student at SJSU volunteering to report my experiences at Spring Symposium. I attended the Advocacy @ Your Library workshop on Friday morning and Mining the Gold workshop Friday afternoon and Saturday morning.

Advocacy @ Your Library introduced Advocacy Toolkit for Success, a collaboration between PLA and the Metropolitan Group . Earlier in the conference in the Opening Session, Mary Baykan, director of Maryland’s Washington County Free Library, executive director of the Western Maryland Public Libraries, and the Library Journal’s Librarian of the Year, told us how Maryland Libraries succeeded in getting the Maryland legislature to increase funding to $37, 000,000 in a state with a population of 5,000,000. As a point of comparison, Susan Hildreth, the California State Librarian, reminded us California State legislature spends $28,000,000 on a population of 38,000,000 (please correct my figures).

Friday morning Laura Lee Dellinger, a principal at Metropolitan Group, gave us an Advocacy 101 crash course titled Libraries Prosper with Passion, Purpose and Persuasion as an introduction to the workshop. Friday afternoon and Saturday morning participants broke up into groups to work on four real library advocacy situations: bond measures/levies, library districts, general funding, and matching grants. I was encouraged to browse other workshops, which I did.

I have trouble even saying advocacy (four syllables with stress on the first), so I really appreciated the overview. I’ve straightened out my notes and publishing them here. If I’ve made any conceptual errors please correct me in the comments!

There are differences between public relations, marketing, and advocacy. Public relations concerns to long term relationship building–the ongoing interactions with people beyond the library community. Marketing relates to a specific transaction; you market a specific program to a target population to bring about a specific transaction. An example would be marketing the summer reading program to school-aged children to encourage reading.

Advocacy involves advancing a cause or proposal through persuasive argument. The cause or purpose must have a clear focus—a problem defined in terms of the community served, such as what the library can’t do because it doesn’t have the resources. The cause must have a solution—such as if the bond measure passes then the library can better serve the community. The cause must include a call to action—therefore, please vote yes on the library bond measure, or vote yes on the library funding bill.

To successfully advocate for your cause, you will need to have your public relations already established–that is your relationships with groups and people beyond the library community must already be in place. Libraries usually advocate for is increased funding. But your cause must be defined in terms of the community your serve, not in terms of what the library needs or how much money the library needs.

The very first step is building the argument. This means defining the problem and developing a solution. Defining the problem involves inquiry—asking the questions that will uncover the right information. “What are we trying to change?” “How can we meet our mission to serve the community?” Determining community needs involves surveys, polls, studies, and statistics. Bottom line: define the problem in terms of community needs and expectations of services.

The second step is developing the solution: working out how the library can meet the needs and expectations of the community and how to build a persuasive argument that best presents this solution. Here is where passion, purpose, people, and persuasion come in. Passion is ethos or character, competence and goodwill. Purpose involved stating why libraries are essential and what is needed in the community what libraries can provide. “We’re listening to you and finding out what you need;” now how does our solution address community needs?”

The third step focuses on people and persuasion, people who can advance your cause and methods to persuade them. Focus on the people who can give you what you want—who can make the choice for which you are advocating. There will be primary audiences, the decision makers such as those controlling the money, and s and secondary audiences, those who influence them, such as stakeholders in the community. Don’t waste time on those who will never be convinced, nor those who are already convinced—focus on the moveable middle, those who can be persuaded to move in your direction.

Persuade them through your commonly shared values. Base your message on commonly held existing community values rather than attempting to establish a new set of values. Get your message right. Take the argument away from money itself to what you need it for—what is needed in the community that the library can provide, not what the library needs.

A persuasive argument involves a systematic chain of reasoning—building a chain of support for your position. You must prove your position. You must make a link between what the library has to offer and what people in your community care about if you expect the community to support the library. You convince your audience by providing meaningful information: not statistics but real life stories. Blend together proof by reason with emotion: “Marry the data with a human story.”

You must consider the messenger as a key part of the argument, so make the messenger the right person. Fit the messenger to the audience. Use as proof qualitative data–sttories, examples, definitions, description, quotes, analogies/comparisons, testimonies from experts, customer leaders– and quantitative evidence—surveys, polls, studies, statistics.

The last step is the call to action: what you want your audience to do that will serve your cause. Your call to action can involve supporting a proposal, becoming a partner, passing a budget, voting, giving. Calls to action involve getting your argument heard. Use channels such as direct outreach, grassroots outreach, and media outreach. Meet directly with individuals or small groups. Meet with larger groups through partner and allies. Use formal media outlets.

The last “P” is position or measurement and evaluation. Gather information as you go. Ask your audience how you are doing and ask yourselves how you did—what happened? Did you achieve your goals?

Lasting notions about Advocacy
Champions: every cause/program/effort needs its champion. What are champions? People with the power (at varying levels) to make things happen. There are primary champions and secondary champions: Primary: people in state, county, city, or community governments that directly make things happen. Secondary: stakeholders in the community that influence the primary champions. Champions can be people or groups: In context of libraries, champions are legislators willing to sponsor a library funding bill. In the context of literacy, libraries are the natural champions of literacy.

Kristin Yiotis
SLIS, SJSU
ALASC Chair 2006-07

I met C.C. Chapman and Mitch Joel first thing when I walked in the door this morning. I had no idea that they would be presenting today, but really, that’s the fun of the unconference: anyone can present. I was even approached to do a presentation tomorrow, since there are still slots open. We’ll see how it goes.

Anyway, C.C. and Mitch spoke on the art of branding. A brand is not money, a name, a T shirt, a free mouse pad. A brand, indeed, is a story. And podcasting is about the conversation. If you have an experience, community, conversation, put it all together and you have a brand.

Who cares about a personal brand? Everyone should. It’s not just a corporate thing, it’s a small organization thing, a non-profit thing, a family thing. A brand brings you in, even if you’re not in agreement about the content. You get someone excited about something, and there’s interaction, that’s what’s bringing people in. (Especially if you’re trying to bring in money with your podcast.) However, you should never do anything that isn’t you, everything you have within you is what you should be communicating.

There are really three parts to branding, all connected to relationships.

• The Internal Conversation: Who are you, how do you get it out there. Find the real you, and tell your story. As Karen Hyman likes to say, it’s not about the numbers, it’s about the story, the humanization of your message, your goal, your desired outcome. Take all of that, and make it to your podcast. If you’re not sure what your podcast should be about, find your passion, and use that for your podcast, because somewhere you’ll find an audience. You are creating a mental tattoo on your audience, so that your show is among the 3 or 4 podcasts in the sea of over-subscribed feeds that people can’t wait to listen to.

• The One-to-One: This fits into the idea of the 15-second/elevator pitch, something that makes for an interesting *start* to a conversation. Podcasting is a broadcasting mechanism, it’s not the story. It’s “What are you listening to?” not “Do you listen to podcasts?” Spend the time and get to know your listeners, to plan how you’re going to get from your first podcast to 4 podcasts down the line. It’s all about listening, getting feedback, and improving the story, which improves the brand. It’s all very outreach oriented. It’s not about agreeing, it’s about the conversation, NOT the technology.

• The One-to-Many: Taking it to the next level, the real power is creating the communities by connecting through technology/podcasting/blogging. The community that forms from the connections, and sometimes those connections start and remain online.

A few other tidbits they shared include:

• Not all about who you know, it’s about who knows you.
• Always talk to strangers (not the dark alley ones), get to know the people next to you. Networking is key to marketing *and* improving your brand.
• Find about your podcast theme peers, your competitors, your dissidents, and listen.
• When you think about your podcast, networking, marketing, think “Would you like to sit next to you at dinner?” (quoted from The Economist)

Christopher Penn, the madman behind the PodCamp unconference, speaks about marketing a podcast once you have it. The value of this presentation is not just in the marketing information for a podcast, but the importance of social networking to the future of marketing, especially viral marketing, and how libraries should definitely be thinking about reaching the web market at multiple age levels.

Here’s the quick and dirty on how to market your podcast:

• First things first, make sure to search optimize your site. Make sure your name, or at least a few keywords on your show, is in the <TITLE> tag, list your site with search engines that accept site registrations or in directories. Your site for your podcast needs to be as searchable, indexable, and search-relevant as possible, so that when anyone types in your
• Keep your content as close to you as possible, and offer direct links to your content are key. Try to avoid second-party feed hosts (Yahoo! Podcasts is apparently notorious for fouling up podcasts, losing episodes, etc.) Hosting your own content, then creating feeds to that content allows you to keep a handle on the content as well as get better statistics.
• Create as many access points to your content as possible by creating as many accounts on as many social networking sites as possible, from LiveJournal to MySpace to Xanga to Facebook to Second Life. Provide linkage back to your content and feed, as well as adding the coding for in-page players.
• Create calls to action in your text as well as in your audio. Make sure your content feed and player are “above the fold” on your page, imbed a player so that people can click and listen, allow options for email subscription and email a friend. Also, in the audio of your podcast, tell people how to download iTunes or your podcast player/aggregator of choice and subscribe.
• Make your listeners evangelists by making it easy to let them pass the viral word along about your podcast. You can record little promos that other podcasters can use in their broadcasts, you can do interviews with anyone who wants to talk to you.
• MySpace, MySpace, MySpace. Books and book groups are *huge* on MySpace right now. Creating a profile that mirrors a few important bits of your podcast site, add the web-based player to your page as well as iTunes and direct links to your feed, and add friends like crazy. It does require a bit of homework, spending time in Groups on MySpace to add as friends to push your content to, but it’s a huge marketing boon for podcasters.

While these tips are podcast advertising oriented, I’d say this is a good way for libraries to start thinking about advertising what the library can do for people, especially for people who wouldn’t normally think to use or visit the library.