The Public Relations Awards Ceremony honors the best public relations materials from
Massachusetts libraries, as chosen by a panel of distinguished judges.
The event was well attended and flowed efficiently, which is all that can really be asked of an award ceremony. There were many awards given in a myriad of categories, but the most rewarding part of the ceremony was the atmosphere.
As each award winner approached the stage, their pride in their profession and passion for library service was evident. After the ceremony, attendees took every opportunity to congratulate the winners; the mutual support amongst library professionals was palpable. Given the economic climate, it is especially heartening to be surrounded by such positivity.
The ceremony was presented by Co-Chairs of Massachusetts Library Association Public Relations Committee, Laurie Lessner (SAILS) and Greg Pronevitz (NEMRLS).
There were far more awards than would be reasonable to report here, but within a week MLA will post the winners of each category, photos, and a model press release for libraries who won awards on their website:
http://www.masslib.org/PRAward09
Rebecca Krznarich, Reference and Adult Services Librarian, Whitman Public Library
Showing posts with label marketing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label marketing. Show all posts
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Finding Your Message: Brands, Logos, and Taglines
Speaker: Elizabeth Doucett
Creating a Tagline:
From the library's vision statement, we can brainstorm on how to develop a Tagline.
You don’t need to pay a marketing firm huge sums of money – all you need is some inspiration from your staff and a good thesaurus
Great Examples:
West Palm Beach Public Library - An oasis of knowledge
Boston Public Library – Books are just the beginning
Quaker Oats - Warms your heart and soul
We need to think about what makes our library unique.
Another exercise is to have your patrons fill in the blank:
My library is the only place that I can________________.
If the library is not open then I go _________________.
This will give us how and why our patrons use the library. Remember: We have many messages that we want to get across but we need to just pick the most important one.
Creating a Tagline:
From the library's vision statement, we can brainstorm on how to develop a Tagline.
You don’t need to pay a marketing firm huge sums of money – all you need is some inspiration from your staff and a good thesaurus
Great Examples:
West Palm Beach Public Library - An oasis of knowledge
Boston Public Library – Books are just the beginning
Quaker Oats - Warms your heart and soul
We need to think about what makes our library unique.
Another exercise is to have your patrons fill in the blank:
My library is the only place that I can________________.
If the library is not open then I go _________________.
This will give us how and why our patrons use the library. Remember: We have many messages that we want to get across but we need to just pick the most important one.
Finding Your Message-Brands, Logos and Taglines
Liz Doucett, Director of the Curtis Memorial library in Brunswick, Maine http://www.curtislibrary.com/ brought her vast experience with brand management to MLA today.
Marketing and Branding...How can they help my library and how do I get started...were the focus guestions.
Marketing is an umbrella term for strategy, planning, tactics, publicity and events. Branding is a component of marketing..just one piece...using your message and logo. The logo is the visual representation for your message . Branding is critical in a world of information overload and has become a site expectation to define a role and give alot of information quickly.
What you want to say has to be meaningful to the target audience. There is emotion based branding and there is attribute based branding. Emotion based is very powerful such as the VOLVO Saved My Life Club vs. the attribute based list of Beer ads. Emotion based branding is used to make a connection with your audience and change the way people think about you. Libraries want to stay away from a laundry list of information in there marketing.
Library message should address the everyday needs of their patrons and how those needs are met and what makes your library unique.
Examples of some library brands;
Boston Public Library "Books are just the beginning:
West Palm Beach Public Library "An oasis of knowledge"
Harris County Public Library "Your pathway to knowledge"
Library of Congress "More than a library"
When considering marketing...Is it unique, meaningful and relevant
Make sure you deliver on that message
Never promise what you can't deliver
Look for Liz Doucett's publication with ALA in June "Creating Your Library Brand"
joan h
Marketing and Branding...How can they help my library and how do I get started...were the focus guestions.
Marketing is an umbrella term for strategy, planning, tactics, publicity and events. Branding is a component of marketing..just one piece...using your message and logo. The logo is the visual representation for your message . Branding is critical in a world of information overload and has become a site expectation to define a role and give alot of information quickly.
What you want to say has to be meaningful to the target audience. There is emotion based branding and there is attribute based branding. Emotion based is very powerful such as the VOLVO Saved My Life Club vs. the attribute based list of Beer ads. Emotion based branding is used to make a connection with your audience and change the way people think about you. Libraries want to stay away from a laundry list of information in there marketing.
Library message should address the everyday needs of their patrons and how those needs are met and what makes your library unique.
Examples of some library brands;
Boston Public Library "Books are just the beginning:
West Palm Beach Public Library "An oasis of knowledge"
Harris County Public Library "Your pathway to knowledge"
Library of Congress "More than a library"
When considering marketing...Is it unique, meaningful and relevant
Make sure you deliver on that message
Never promise what you can't deliver
Look for Liz Doucett's publication with ALA in June "Creating Your Library Brand"
joan h
If You Build it, Will They Come?: Marketing from an Academic Library Point-of-View
If You Build it, Will They Come?: Marketing from an Academic Library Point-of-View
Speakers:
Lisa Wiecki, Assistant Director for Public Services and Outreach, Library and Technology Services, Brandeis University;
Joshua Wilson, Associate Director, Library and Technology Services, Brandeis University
I have a personal interest in this session. I wrote before that our library at Salem State College quite suddenly closed last October. In relocating in offices around campus, librarians really had to refashion and repackage what they do on a day-to-day basis. There seemed to be a lot of marketing involved in communicating with the campus what the librarians do, and do well, without a library building. This has been a good model for librarians to become highly visible in a profession that is constantly changing.
Lisa and Joshua introduced a tool that helps with communication, called the communication scorecard. There are two case studies in implementing marketing in an academic library.
Lisa and Joshua say they are a Liberal Arts/Research University and created a model for communication. The model is a distributed model designed for the 110 full time staff members in an effort to get the word out efficiently to campus constituents. There are still hurdles to effective communication with such a large number of staff--hence the scorecard that was created by Lisa and Joshua.
The presenters ask us to think about Aspects: Context (Project, Goals, Audience Focus), Message (Message clarity, Message consistency, message distribution, message frequency, and message timing), and Materials (collateral). These consist to make a Scorecard, or a model, to follow in marketing services. The case study Joshua reports on is Brandeis' migration to LATTE (Learning And Teaching Technology Environment).
Case Study:
Project LATTE
Context: Project
Name it LATTE (Learning And Teaching Technology Environment)
CONTEXT: Goals and audience
Scorecard: Context (On scale from 1-4)
Project = 3 (clearly defined?)
Goals = 3
Audience = 4 (defined?)
Clarity and Consistency
Told a 3-Part story
Spring
LISA talked about her case study. She held short info lit sessions once a week and sought participation from the Brandeis community. Here is the case study as it is followed by the scorecard.
Context: Project
Scorecard: Context
Lisa did not have ratings, but let the audience at the presentation vote.
Lisa had no budget--Assistant helped create logo
Thursdays@3:00 pm with the T as a tree and an owl at the top of the tree (owl=Brandeis logo)
Different flyer every week and changed color, which people were not fond of seeing.
Scorecard: Materials
Lisa had 10 sessions in the Fall, 8 in the Spring. predominantly staff who showed-up and raved about the number of staff who participated. Lisa never saw so many staff show-up.
Stuff that was "sexy" did well. Show-and-tell from archive, etc. Needed a different spin to services.
Meetings took place in "Commons" area of library where hip hang-out. udience at the presentation offered advice for working with faculty and finding other ways to arget students.
Joshua and Lisa then implemented a workshop for us at the presentation. The audience agreed to interview Heather Tompkins from Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. The audience participated in listening to Heather explain her project about imparting information literacy to faculty and helped to devise a scorecard to implement the project. Employed an interviewing technique based on the questions from the scorecard to really reflect and respond to a variety of projects.
Scorecard: Context (Why pursuing info literacy, learning and teaching with curriculum)
Speakers:
Lisa Wiecki, Assistant Director for Public Services and Outreach, Library and Technology Services, Brandeis University;
Joshua Wilson, Associate Director, Library and Technology Services, Brandeis University
I have a personal interest in this session. I wrote before that our library at Salem State College quite suddenly closed last October. In relocating in offices around campus, librarians really had to refashion and repackage what they do on a day-to-day basis. There seemed to be a lot of marketing involved in communicating with the campus what the librarians do, and do well, without a library building. This has been a good model for librarians to become highly visible in a profession that is constantly changing.
Lisa and Joshua introduced a tool that helps with communication, called the communication scorecard. There are two case studies in implementing marketing in an academic library.
Lisa and Joshua say they are a Liberal Arts/Research University and created a model for communication. The model is a distributed model designed for the 110 full time staff members in an effort to get the word out efficiently to campus constituents. There are still hurdles to effective communication with such a large number of staff--hence the scorecard that was created by Lisa and Joshua.
The presenters ask us to think about Aspects: Context (Project, Goals, Audience Focus), Message (Message clarity, Message consistency, message distribution, message frequency, and message timing), and Materials (collateral). These consist to make a Scorecard, or a model, to follow in marketing services. The case study Joshua reports on is Brandeis' migration to LATTE (Learning And Teaching Technology Environment).
Case Study:
Project LATTE
Context: Project
- WebCT heavily used; at great risk of failure
- Decision: Launch LATTE in Fall 2007
Name it LATTE (Learning And Teaching Technology Environment)
CONTEXT: Goals and audience
- Sophisticated, thoughtful, strategic approach
- use branding to enhance message
- focus on faculty audience
Scorecard: Context (On scale from 1-4)
Project = 3 (clearly defined?)
Goals = 3
Audience = 4 (defined?)
Clarity and Consistency
Told a 3-Part story
- Risk: WebCT in danger of failure
- Benefit: LATTE offers enriched environment for learning and teaching
- Support: LTS will offer excetional, innovative support for faculty and students
Spring
- CIO presentation to faculty meeting
- LATTE Project Action Plan
- Email and website news
- Clarity: 4 (Clear and concise?)
- Consistency:4 (disseminated consistently?)
- Distribution: 4
- Frequency: 4
- Timing: 4 (Appropriate timing--prior to semester start)
- Publications branding latte coffee bean packets, magnets, postcards and fliers
- Collateral: 4 (well-designed and eye catching)
LISA talked about her case study. She held short info lit sessions once a week and sought participation from the Brandeis community. Here is the case study as it is followed by the scorecard.
Context: Project
- Brandeis offers a wealth of services and resources
- 30,000 e journals and 250 databases
- mega huge challenge to get the word out
- Idea!
- Develop a weekly learning series to showcase services and info resources
- Name it Thursdays@3 (time no classes--theoretically students are available)
- Just dive in and do it approach
- Success criteria never really defined
- Target audience sometimes students, sometimes U employees, faculty, sometimes everyone
Scorecard: Context
Lisa did not have ratings, but let the audience at the presentation vote.
- Project (Project clearly defined?): 2
- Goals (communication success?): 2
- Audience Focus (audience clearly defined?): 2
- Flyers and table tents
- news alerts on our website, etc.
- Clarity: 3
- Consistency: 3
- Distribution: 4
- Frequency: 4
- Timing: 4
Lisa had no budget--Assistant helped create logo
Thursdays@3:00 pm with the T as a tree and an owl at the top of the tree (owl=Brandeis logo)
Different flyer every week and changed color, which people were not fond of seeing.
Scorecard: Materials
- Collateral (well-designed?): 2
Lisa had 10 sessions in the Fall, 8 in the Spring. predominantly staff who showed-up and raved about the number of staff who participated. Lisa never saw so many staff show-up.
Stuff that was "sexy" did well. Show-and-tell from archive, etc. Needed a different spin to services.
Meetings took place in "Commons" area of library where hip hang-out. udience at the presentation offered advice for working with faculty and finding other ways to arget students.
Joshua and Lisa then implemented a workshop for us at the presentation. The audience agreed to interview Heather Tompkins from Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. The audience participated in listening to Heather explain her project about imparting information literacy to faculty and helped to devise a scorecard to implement the project. Employed an interviewing technique based on the questions from the scorecard to really reflect and respond to a variety of projects.
Scorecard: Context (Why pursuing info literacy, learning and teaching with curriculum)
- Project: 3
- Goals: 3
- Audience: 4
- What message trying to send?
- How will your message change over lifespan of project?
- How will you maintain the consistency of your message?
- In what ways will you disseminate your message?
- Will these methods reach your target audience?
- What frequency and timing will best serve your communication effort?
- Clarity: 3-4
- Consistency: 3-4
- Distribution: 3
- Frequency: 2
- Timing: 3
- What collateral will you distribute?
- What resources will you allocate to create this collateral?
- How will this collateral amplify your message?
- 2
Friday, May 4, 2007
Blogging Beyond the Library World
Blogging beyond the library world is what I hope is happening during and after this conference. I just posted an entry on the Telegram's Westminster blog at http://www.telegram.com/westminster to try to bring one library issue to my limited, but growing, readership. If this type of blog is something that interests you, librarians or anyone in Worcester County can still capture blogspace on the Worcester Telegram site by signing up to be a blogger. (Yes, it is a volunteer position.)
Thank you to Susan Caulfield for her entry about social networking, which I copied to my Town's blog.
Thank you to Susan Caulfield for her entry about social networking, which I copied to my Town's blog.
Thursday, May 3, 2007
I'm Ready for My Close-up, Mr. DeMille: Using Video Editing Software to Create Instructional Videos
You just had to be there. Scot Colford, Application Manager of BPL, discussion of using his camcorder to record video was excellent, but it was very visual and process related. In short, not very bloggable. Scott fearlessly took a packed seminar room into the guts of Windows Movie Maker step by step.
"Shoot more than you need."
"Don't trust the sound. Experiment. Add a mic."
He suggested a storyboard site to help you plan your video:
http://www.stripgenerator.com
http://www.rehanfx.org
Then, Elissa Cadillic, Training Coordinator at BPL joined the discussion and they presented a short training video.
Bet this will be the winner of the Academy Awards of Libray Videos. Scot's and Elissa's collaboration video on Branch Serials (branch cereals) was clever and entertaining. Again you had to be there. A really effective use of the skills and educational components. Kudos to these creative BPL staff members.
Other programs mentioned:
Windows Media Encoder
Flash
Camtasia
Fast Capture (FREE)
Lots of advice from Elissa regarding making training videos:
"Highlight the basics!"
"Save it first! Save it once! Save it again!"
"Not everything has to be dull, dry, and monotone!"
"Short and sweet!"
"Tell a story."
"Pick someone who has never done the process."
How long did it take?
Its possible to create in a night, but a full casted production can take a lot longer.
Can this be uploaded to YouTube?
Save it 320X240 from Movie Maker. Follow the process to download on the YouTube homepage. This translates it to a Flash Video. YouTube does the rest.
How can you extract a DVD?
Don't extract copyrighted material.
If not copyrighted, go into the file and save as .mpg. Warning, these can be extremely large.
There is DVD "ripping" software (Nero - http://nero.com)
Are there helpful features in the production software?
Camtasia helps you to organize.
What about webcam?
Webcam are very poor resolution. Difficult to control. Better to use camcorder.
How to get started?
Have a plan. Put photos in Moviemaker. Make sure the outcome is what you want before you save. Make a little music video. Play!
"Shoot more than you need."
"Don't trust the sound. Experiment. Add a mic."
He suggested a storyboard site to help you plan your video:
http://www.stripgenerator.com
http://www.rehanfx.org
Then, Elissa Cadillic, Training Coordinator at BPL joined the discussion and they presented a short training video.
Bet this will be the winner of the Academy Awards of Libray Videos. Scot's and Elissa's collaboration video on Branch Serials (branch cereals) was clever and entertaining. Again you had to be there. A really effective use of the skills and educational components. Kudos to these creative BPL staff members.
Other programs mentioned:
Windows Media Encoder
Flash
Camtasia
Fast Capture (FREE)
Lots of advice from Elissa regarding making training videos:
"Highlight the basics!"
"Save it first! Save it once! Save it again!"
"Not everything has to be dull, dry, and monotone!"
"Short and sweet!"
"Tell a story."
"Pick someone who has never done the process."
How long did it take?
Its possible to create in a night, but a full casted production can take a lot longer.
Can this be uploaded to YouTube?
Save it 320X240 from Movie Maker. Follow the process to download on the YouTube homepage. This translates it to a Flash Video. YouTube does the rest.
How can you extract a DVD?
Don't extract copyrighted material.
If not copyrighted, go into the file and save as .mpg. Warning, these can be extremely large.
There is DVD "ripping" software (Nero - http://nero.com)
Are there helpful features in the production software?
Camtasia helps you to organize.
What about webcam?
Webcam are very poor resolution. Difficult to control. Better to use camcorder.
How to get started?
Have a plan. Put photos in Moviemaker. Make sure the outcome is what you want before you save. Make a little music video. Play!
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