(First Session. Notes to attendees: please, please add your notes to this page, as well as links to relevant resources and other items of interest.)

Marketing, Outreach, Public Relations, and stuff
What do you want to talk about? Find out? Discuss?

What are the biggest challenges facing your team/institution?

Library jargon
multiple locations

Staff buy-in – getting folks to market “in the trenches” with patrons/users
- get all to participate

Gap between what (faculty, staff, students) know and what they think they know.
Reach them now via: email (a lot). Important but not enough.

How do we get staff to make things look good? How to convince them that it matters?
Make it EASY – give them tools
“Tell them they must do it.” – David says
Danger: resentful staff. Be careful with how you frame it.
Ex: web site. “You are the content expert. You don’t have to worry about presentation/design.” (And give them the means to make it look good.)
People really feel ownership about their area.
STRENGTH – passion of the staff – also a drawback

K-12 educators – knowledge gap again. Assign stuff that we don’t have – need to get assignments to match materials.

Input – 2 directions (shape collections, shape assignments)

Marketing limitation: dewey system? (hard to have people stand in one tiny section, no reserve section)

Ultimate goal – get to the students. Through faculty? Direct to students? Visibility?

Marketing the web site is hard to do.

Content – Topeka’s web site – “always find something wonderful there.”
Ditto JoCo’s web site

Similarities between small town libraries marketing and college/university libraries

4-up Ask a Librarian –
http://www.lib.ku.edu/instruction/publications/ask.a.librarian.4-up.pdf


What are your biggest assets?

staff passion

goodwill for libraries in general

What do you wish you had time/money/energy resources to do?

bookstore model/browsing collection/neighborhood
better organization - color-coded and icon-coded

Range of different marketing strategies, media (online, print, face to face, web 2.0)

Stickers – WORKED – “Hello, my buddy name is…” – better than desk cards
Magnets of that button (screen shot)

“Ask Allen” instead of ask a librarian

Handouts

Face-to-face (New Student Orientation session)

Colleges and universities –

Visual Identity tools - GOOD

SIGNAGE and gathering a bookstore model/browsing collection organization of the books
- David's example: "neighborhoods" - travel, health are the neighborhoods at Topeka/Shawnee so far
- has an online component

More signage - finding your way into and around the library!

Library as place as marketing tool - comfy furniture, usability

ADA site review - 100% of libraries got written up for poor signage

Books turned out so visible from the hallway (windows)

One-on-one training, classroom training, custom training

“Branding” – getting our brand established with Them.

Focus on services

Getting from old to new – HARD

Roots of Joco colors – blue and yellow, sunflowers and blue sky

Communications outreach coordinator – handouts are hard to make systematic

Strategic Communications Plan - KU Libraries are in the process of implementing one; for more info, contact Sarah - kanning (at) ku.edu

Get people to your web site, and market with your web site (once they’re there)

RESOURCES:
Instruction Sheets - Alice
Strategic Communications Plan - Sarah
Staff Downloads (templates and stuff) - Jenny

Who attended:
Sarah – KU
David – Topeka/Shawnee, works with marketing folks
Jenny – K-State instructional design librarian, on branding task force
Shannon – state library
Erin – school liaison, JoCo Libraries, instigator
Maria – Lawrence Public Library – community relations coordinator
Alice – Allen Community College, and business major, online library instruction class, communications task force
Rachel – K-State – reference, multicultural center, recent grad – how to get students in the door?