“Superbooks:  How Graphics Can Save Your Library” wasn’t a colorful, image-filled presentation on the history of graphics, or a sneak peek at new titles.  Instead, it was a numbers-based case for graphic novels as a solid investment.  Using statistics, graphs, and his own “cost/circ ratio,” Zabriskie demonstrated that the graphic novels in his library’s young adult collection at the Central Library in Jamaica, Queens cost about thirty-eight cents per circulation.

The “cost/circ ratio” is simply the cost of a book divided by the numbers of times it has circulated.   In the Central Library’s young adult collection, graphics had better value for their dollar investment than even high-interest titles such as the Twilight and Harry Potter series.

However, this formula is not meant to be used as a weeding tool.  “Instead of weeding, do some seeding,” Zabriskie suggests.  The high circulation numbers of graphic novels can allow libraries to keep less popular materials without sacrificing circulation statistics.  The classics, for example, may never be circulation blockbusters, but they should be available when patrons need them:  they are “part of our identification as libraries,” notes Zabriskie.

Zabriskie would like to use larger data sets in order to test  his findings’ statistical relevance.  If you would like to contribute similar statistical information from your library, contact him at .

And, of course, you can also use the numbers you generate as a convincing case for the presence of graphic novels in your collection.

– Lisa Goldstein

Keller is a former consumer goods ad man, having come to the library world after a career with Proctor & Gamble, and boy is he a dynamic speaker. Walking around the entire room as he spoke without any notes, he walked the audience through the basics of stakeholder identifications, targeted audiences, strategic positioning statements, marketing plans, and maximizing resources. A lot of this stuff was a little old hat to me, since in my pre-library life, I worked in marketing communications for a pair of ad agencies and for a publisher, but Keller did a great job of making it all feel within the realm of possibility.

Two nice concrete ideas he gave us:

• Instead of making full-page flyers for all your programs, which tend to take up space, get jumbled, and look messy all spread out on tables or flopping out of displays, promote your programs with postcards. You can condense the info to a 2-sided postcard and copy it on colorful card stock using a regular copier. You save paper, it’s simpler for people to grab and stick in their pocket, and most importantly, you can use a standard cheap postcard rack to display them without taking up a lot of space.
• Instead of agonizing about creating a new annual report each year and spending loads of money on a design firm to make each year’s different, create a lovely promo brochure for the library system that can serve many different functions. Design it with a pocket in the back cover so you can insert single sheets with your data, stats, budget numbers, whatever. His rule was that the brochure would tell stories and not use numbers, and then the annual report is the two pieces of paper in the back, since that’s the only info that tends to change from year to year.

Very nice!

Overall, Keller glossed over some of the practical difficulties involved (but then again, he’s a real go-getter, can-do, won’t-take-no-for-an-answer type of guy), but on the whole this was a really nice intro to branding and marketing.