This Will Make You Chuckle

I saw this on another marketing blog and just had to post - it sure made me smile. It's amazing how something so simple can be so powerful.




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E-Readers in NC

The holidays are over and our libraries are seeing the results. I've heard so many library staff talk about the many folks that come in and want help with their e-reader that they got for Christmas. At the State Library we've responded by creating an "e-reader" petting zoo. Several master trainers and State Library staff have been trained and are available to visit NC libraries to give staff the opportunity to handle the different e-readers and learn some of the pros and cons of each. Just another way our libraries prove their value!

Community Connections

Recently I attended the North Carolina Public Library Directors annual awards banquet which I love because it's a great place to witness the creativity of North Carolina's library staff. This year I was impressed with Robeson County Public Library's award winning program Polar Express Comes to Life. The library joined with the city to present a wonderful holiday program centering around the Polar Express movie. The library's, new Teen Theatre group, wrote a script, made costumes and props and presented a production at the community's film presentation of the Polar Express. This was a wonderful partnership between the county and the library highlighting the talented teens from the Teen Theatre Program. And this wasn't just a one time event - the teens travel around the county putting on plays at each of the county's libraries for children during their regular storytime.

Upcoming Marketing Workshop

CHECK IT OUT

The NCLA/Public Library section has developed a great workshop on Maximizing your Marketing with Minimal Costs. The workshop is scheduled for Wednesday, November 17 AND the great news is you can have access to all the content by checking out our wiki at http://nclamarketingwksp.pbworks.com/w/page/5862192/FrontPage

Thanks - ProQuest

Thanks to vendor ProQuest for offering free help for its customers. It's released an updated version of the free marketing toolkit that it's had online for some time.
"The Public Library Marketing Toolkit aims to help librarians develop successful, actionable, and sustainable marketing plans, even if they don't have backgrounds in marketing or promotion. It includes many ready-to-use bookmarks, customizable posters, and fliers designed to save individual organizations the time and money of having materials created on-site. There's also a Flash commercial, along with patron-centric database descriptions for the library Website and links to training materials for both librarians and their users."

The Toolkit is available now, for free, from the ProQuest website at www.proquest.com/go/pltk.

Like Buttons

I've been working on a word of mouth marketing presentation and came up with a great idea that I think would be perfect for a library webpage. You know on facebook and other sites they often have a "like" button or comment. Wouldn't it be great if we had these on our library websites and encouraged folks to click on the like button and post some comments. How great - we could then use those comments to tell our story AND we could ask those folks to tell their friends!

Campaign Kick Off a Big Success

Last week was the statewide Smartest Card Campaign kick off - what a success. The Randolph County Public Library hosted the event and organized an "open mike", featuring our campaign spokesperson, Cathy Smith Bowers, and several local poets. What an excellent partnership between the library and its' community. Cathy entertained the audience with stories about her childhood which gave insight into her poem that she shared, entitled "Namesake." Members from the local writers network shared their work and local resident Phil Shore closed the evening with a reading of his poem about the library card. You can view Phil's reading at

http://www.youtube.com/user/statelibrarync


Also check out some great pictures of the event http://www.flickr.com/photos/asheborolibrary/sets/72157624915422124/show/

In addition we had a webinar to share great ideas on promoting your smartest card campaign. The webinar is now archived you can listen at https://sas.elluminate.com/p.jnlp?psid=2010-08-24.1120.M.025E2EF02EE18FEBA59A57DA84E1DF.vcr&sid=voffice



Put your thinking hats on - Poetry Month is in April - think about agencies you can partner with and programs you can provide to your public.