RSS Feeds
Some of the best marketing strategies may be the most simple.  Many libraries create newsletters to advertise upcoming events.  These work well if you can convince your patrons to actually read them, parsing out the announcement for that book reading they have been eagerly anticipating.  But what may work better for some library users is the ability to subscribe to an RSS feed of these announcements.  Events are then fed to patrons through an RSS reader (like Google Reader) as they are scheduled. A library can even set up separate RSS feeds for different types of events—for example, a feed for children’s storytime, another for adult literacy classes, and another for upcoming exhibitions.

Blogs
Blogs are another easy option for communicating library news and services.  Blogs can also be used to advertise collections in the library that may otherwise go unnoticed.  The San Francisco Public Library has a variety of blogs geared towards specific branches or departments, highlighting the best aspects of their collections.  The New York Public Library recently consolidated all of their department blogs to a main page, Blogging@NYPL.  If a reader would rather read the posts from a specific writer, however, they are able to subscribe via RSS to that writer’s posts.

One of the best aspects of blogging is the ability to connect with the public.  Jill Stover, in her article, “What’s Marketing Got to Do with it?”, points to the Hennepin County Library as an excellent example of libraries using blogs to discuss new initiatives in the library (2007).  The library recently posted information on the merger of the Hennepin County Library catalog with that of the former Minneapolis Public Library.  Library users were able to comment or ask questions concerning how the merger would affect them.  Responses by librarians to these questions ended up serving a dual purpose—they answered the patron’s question while leaving a public record of that answer, allowing answers to be visible to anyone else who may have a similar question.

But as Stover warns, it’s not enough for a library to simply write a blog. They must also invest time and effort reading and responding to other blogs–especially when these blogs are discussing your library. She encourages librarians to “do your own market research by searching for mentions of your library, librarians in general, or topics important to your patron base. You may be surprised by the contexts in which discussions about libraries take place and you’ll also learn a great deal about the lives of your patrons and their perceptions of libraries” (2007).  Commenting on other blogs also allows librarians to clarify information about the library or point users towards services they may not have previously been aware of.

Flickr
Libraries have been using Flickr for some time to post public photos of library programs, allowing the community to share in the library experience.  A number of great ideas for how to use Flickr can be found in P.F. Anderson’s article, “31 Flavors–Things to do with Flickr in Libraries” (2007).  Some ideas from the article include: creating a library photo tour, embedding photos from Flickr in the library website as a slideshow, and highlighting photos and items from rare collections (Anderson, 2007).  The Library of Congress has created “The Commons” on Flickr to share many of their images with the public.  Other libraries and museums have partnered with them in this venture and are creating a vibrant photo collection online as well as an example of the breadth of library collections.

Some libraries and library groups have found other creative ways to use Flickr, inviting the community to collaborate on photologs or projects.  One example is Library 101, the collaborative project between Michael Porter, David Lee King, and the library community to create a music video utilizing user-generated pictures involving the numbers 1 and 0.  As of today, over 500 pictures have been submitted for the project.  While most of the participants seem to be fellow librarians, a collaborative project such as this could be used in a public library setting to help build community among library patrons.

Gaming
Gaming is commonly seen as a way to get teens interested and involved in the library, but they have also started being used with seniors to promote activity and interaction.  Dale Lipschultz in, “Gaming@Your Library”, discussed an initiative at the Old Bridge Public Library to match up teen mentors with older adults, forging connections between the two groups while simultaneously teaching leadership skills to teens as they lead these older adults through various games.  By channeling this interest in gaming towards other aspects of the library (perhaps by supplying books or magazines with gaming references), libraries can capitalize on the increase in traffic that gaming brings in.

Video
Libraries are increasingly finding themselves in the role of video producer.  These videos are often either informative, showing off the various features of the library, or collaborative, involving library patrons (young and old) in their creation.  More often of late, these videos can be hugely entertaining.  I recently stumbled upon two creative examples, using video to announce upcoming events and/or library services.  The first, from the Collingswood Public Library, uses a silent movie theme to announce a fun run benefiting a library teen space.

The second video is from the Orange County Public Library.  In this video, G.I. Joe figurines are used as spokespeople, discussing the benefits of the library’s iPhone interface.  It is informative while showing off the library’s sense of humor and targets the younger demographic that is most likely to interact with the library using new technology.

But it is not enough to just create a video and stick it up on the library website, according to Aaron Schmidt and Sarah Houghton-Jan in their article, “How to Drive Traffic to Your Website” (2008).  They suggest that libraries take advantage of free online video hosting services such as YouTube and Blip.tv.  Both of the videos shown here can also be found on YouTube.  The Orange County Public Library has even set up their own YouTube page, allowing library patrons to easily locate all of their videos.

Social Networking
Finally, Twitter and Facebook are a free and easy ways to broadcast important library information.  The Missouri River Regional Library is currently using an application called Twitterfeed to pull previously published information from their Flickr pages, blog, press releases, and events pages and publish them again on their Twitter account (n.a, 2007).  Libraries with Facebook accounts can advertise upcoming events, photos, and services to fans, showing up in individual’s news feed.

These are but a few ways libraries can leverage the power of Web 2.0 to reach out and connect with their patrons.  Most of these services are quick, easy, and often free. In a time of tight budgets, libraries need to utilize these cheap but effective marketing strategies.

References

Anderson, P.F. (2007).  31 Flavors–things to do with Flickr in libraries. Webjunction. Retrieved August 1, 2009 from http://www.webjunction.org/marketing/articles/content/450126?_OCLC_ARTICLE%20%20%20%20S_getContentFromWJ=true

Lipschultz, D. (2009). Gaming @ Your Library. American Libraries, v. 40 (1/2), 40-3. Retrieved March 22, 2009, from Library Lit & Inf Full Text database.

n.a. (2007). Twitter and the Missouri River Regional Library. Webjunction. Retrieved August 1, 2009 from http://www.webjunction.org/marketing/articles/content/449819?_OCLC_ARTICLE%20%20%20%20S_getContentFromWJ=true

Schmidt, A. & Houghton-Jan, S. (2008).  How to drive traffic to your website.  Information Today. Retrieved August 1, 2009 from http://www.infotoday.com/mls/nov08/Schmidt_Houghton-Jan.shtml.

Stover, J. (2007). What’s marketing got to do with it?. Webjunction. Retrieved August 1, 2009 from http://www.webjunction.org/marketing/articles/content/444514?_OCLC_ARTICLE%20%20%20%20S_getContentFromWJ=true.

I’m glad to see that the New York Public Library is continuing their collaboration with artists and crafters after their popular Design By the Book series with Design*sponge.  This time they are partnering up with with Maura Madden, author of Crafternoon: A Guide to Getting Artsy and Craftsy with Your Friends All Year Long, to bring Crafternoons to the Public Library.  Anyone lucky enough to live near the NYPL should check them out.

Another Video from OCLS that I enjoyed:

Another random question–is anyone else trying out Scriblio for their final project?  I have loaded it semi-successfully, but this half-success isn’t working with my desire to overachieve.  100% success might be nice.  If you are working with Scriblio, I would love to ask you a few questions to get this working correctly.  Many thanks in advance.

UPDATE:  Looks like the NYPL is offering streaming video and audio and my own San Francisco Public Library will begin to offer the service starting May 4th.  Fantastic!

I’ve been following updates on the NYPL Labs page and am really intrigued with the changes they are discussing and implementing.  Today’s post examined preconceptions librarians have about their users and what is popular in the library.  Reviewing top search terms at the NYPL, librarians were suprised to discover “Tumblebooks” at the top of the list.  I was suprised as well since I have never heard of them (if I was focused on children’s librarianship, I’m sure I would have).

It makes sense that people are so interested in Tumblebooks–it is a wonderful resource for children’s books, games, etc!  They provide flash animated books, games and puzzles, audio books, and even a section for language learning (which is great for me because I can’t read anything more advanced than children’s french–and even it is difficult).

Another worthwhile announcement from the Labs blog is their development of an open source web usability survey (which they are calling Infomaki).  They survey only asks users to answer one question at a time, instead of committing to a long 20- 50 question survey that can take up quite a bit of time.  After a user has answered a question, they are asked if they want to answer another or get on with their business.  Most choose to continue answering questions–in much larger numbers than other traditional suveys.  The survey appears at the top of the library webpage and is simply designed and non-intrusive.  This open source gem could also be used by other libraries in the future.  Keep your eyes on the NYPL Labs blog.  Some good ideas are originating there that may be a benefit to all libraries.

If libraries want to remain relevant in this age of multimedia, they have to incorporate screencasts, other video, or media interactivity to some degree.  This may be a pretty strong statement given some of the drawbacks of these mediums.  However, as the web becomes more visually stunning, allowing us to absorb information in various ways (aurally, visually, verbally) users are beginning to demand more from their libraries than just words on a page (or web page).

Of the video formats listed here, screencasting seems to be the most well suited to a library environment.  As proponents of information literacy, librarians can use screencasts to reach and educate users where they are and when the want to learn (instead of requiring users to meet librarians at the library or during library hours).  Meredith Farkas also states that screencasts can be helpful for patrons who are too embarrassed to ask for help.  They can watch instructional screencasts without anyone knowing they are doing so.  There are a number of fantastic screencasts that have been produced by libraries teaching users how to select resources to match their needs,  walk users through the steps of a basic search, and demonstrate various software products.  Farkas points to the Blake Library at the University of Maine as an example of a library using screencasts to better explain searching the library catalog.  I particularly like the tutorials that have been created as part of the ANTS (ANimated Tutorial Sharing Project) project that are uploaded to the LION site (Library Information Literacy Online Network) on blip.tv.  These videos provide a wealth of information including how to use various databases found in libraries, how to use multiple web based tools, and how to find copyright free images and formulate good research questions.

Other videos, or vodcasts produced by libraries, can be a bit hit and miss when it comes to usefulness and quality.  Some libraries are using vodcasts to broadcast readings or lectures held in their libraries, adding a visual component to similar programs in podcast form.  I have highlighted a few videos previously on this blog that I found to be worthwhile uses of library video.  The first is a library orientation video for California College of the Arts that is creative and fun–just as an art library video should be.  The second is a series of videos created by the New York Public Library in collaboration with the popular design blog design*sponge.  These videos reach out to the design community in an attempt to show the usefulness of the library in their creative projects.  Based on some of the projects completed by artists using library materials as their inspiration, I would say this particular video venture was a success.

But using screencasts or video in libraries is not without a few drawbacks, as Farkas points out.  Videos are very large files and take up a lot of server space.  Some libraries may not be prepared to host such large files.  Farkas also reminds us that a few users are still connecting to the Internet via dial-up, making video files prohibitively slow to download.  Yet these things will change over time.  Users are flocking to broadband in larger numbers every year.  Libraries are investing in the technological infrastructure needed to house files as large as screencasts or other videos.  My prediction is that screencasting and vodcasting are going to become bigger and bigger components of the library experience.  At least I hope they will.

However, the one thing I’ve learned in my study of RSS this week is that many libraries are not using RSS at the level they should be.  This was particularly evident after examining the Oakland and San Francisco library websites–finding little to no RSS available.  As our information sphere grows larger and larger, RSS becomes an essential tool to manage information overload.  No longer do we have to remember to return to certain websites to find the information we want and need, but we can make that information come to us.  Using RSS in the library catalog or database searches is the advancement in research that many scholars have been wishing for.  RSS is also a great marketing tool.  If you can get people in the community to subscribe to a library events calendar or lists of new books, they may return to the library more often.  Both the Oakland and San Francisco Public Libraries only offer emailed newsletters for some of this information.  While some patrons may still prefer this, why not have both?  The Library of Congress does this, to great effect.  They offer multiple event subscriptions as well as blogs, news, hours of operation, and weekly lists, all by both email subscription and RSS.  If libraries wish to hold on to their position as centers of knowledge in our communities, adding RSS capabilities is a must.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3: