Internet Librarian 2008: Online Marketing and Promotion: Making It Fun & Economical

Internet Librarian 2008: Online Marketing and Promotion: Making It Fun & Economical
Lauren Stokes and Geert van der Boogard

Lauren Stokes talked about the Las Vegas Clark County Library District - they have 23 branches with a $72 million budget.  They have two blogs for staff and two for patrons.  The Virtual Library Notes blog is for staff where updates to online services are posted.  Staff can comment as well.  There is a Technology Advisory Committee blog as well that helps to alert staff to new technologies both in and out of the library.  The Read Me Vegas Blog is a book-based blog for users and has weekly features: Tuesday Trivia, Random Thursday (things associated with books - books into movies, etc.), and Weekend Update which is a list of all the events coming up in the next week.  The Librarian's Brain blog has tips and tricks on online resources - how to use a database, resources on hot topics, etc.  They also added a page for teachers listing all of the lesson plans in the various databases.  They also offer a site for book lovers.  They subscribe to Book Letters.  Their site also offers ratings and reviews in the catalog.  Users can rate quickly with stars and write full length reviews as well (users initialize the reviews).  They have a Book Letter feature that harvests the ratings and reviews and they publish a selected 25 each month as its own Book Letter.  The ILS doesn't allow for searching of the reviews, so this is a way around that.  It also boosts circulation of the reviewed books and adds to the number of reviewers and reviews.  Book Letters increased circulation.  Stokes really, really likes Book Letters.  The library also does gaming related to libraries.  They use an Information Literacy Game created by Scott Rice and Amy (missed last name) - you go around the board answering questions, contains website evaluations, database questions, and a lot more.  They used the game technology to create a game about their community reads book, The Great Gatsby.  They also built their own game "Petstacular" using Multimedia Fusion 2 for a pet fair that they had.  The information literacy game was played over a thousand times.  The pet game was downloaded 51 times. 

Geert talked about the DOK Library in Delft in the Netherlands.  Geert is a designer and looks for new ways to connect with people using design.  The DOK Library serves a community of 100,000 people.  DOK calls itself a library concept center.  They have music pods - listening chairs with music all around you, and a touch screen where you can choose the music you want to listen to.  He emphasized the imiportance of knowing your users - what are they doing and what are they interested in?  DOK Agora is a place in the library, a big multimedia room, audio and video equipment, and more.  The idea is that people can ntell tehir own stories by putting their information and creations up on the big screen.  They will encourage people online and offline to participate in Agora to tell their stories.  There will be a website where people can submit some basic information to start telling their stories.  They also have a Digital Art project - taking photos of the art in their collections.  The artwork is sent to school kids, with a rotating collection of different art, - who then come to the library to see the real thing.  Another project is Narrowcasting.  This is a digital screen showing directions as well as events and other info.  The system runs on a Nintendo wii.  They also use Bluetooth in the library.  When people walked into the library they would get a welcome message on their phones.  They also provide songs, audio books, videos, etc. that people can download via Blue Tooth in the library too.  They're using Flickr to post their photos.  They also have a Ning community where users can create profiles and comment on DOK. 

IL2008