Do You See the Signs? Evaluating Language,Branding, and Design in a Library Signage Audit

Signage represents more than directions or policies; it is informational, promotional, and sets the tone of the environment. To be effective, signage must be consistent, concise, and free of jargon and punitive language. An efficient assessment of signage should include a complete inventory of existing signage, including an analysis of the types of signs, its location, language, and its design. This article outlines the steps involved in a comprehensive signage audit, which along with a literature review, provides the foundation for creating a signage policy, best practices guidelines, and a branding strategy for future signage.     

Frankenstein @ Our Library–Monstrous Opportunities for Marketing

Abstract

When the Coates Library received notification that the ALA Traveling Exhibition on Frankenstein would be visiting Trinity University, staff reacted with excitement but also with a twinge of fear about all the effort entailed in developing programs and creating a major publicity campaign. This article focuses on the challenges the exhibit presented: who to turn to for help; how to involve members of the campus community; what to use for effective publicity; how to balance education and entertainment in the programs and their advertising; where to seek funds; and how to present three weeks of programming without exhausting the planners or overwhelming potential audiences.     

What Would You Like Earth's Largest Library to Be?

Abstract

A college librarian reflects on the role of libraries and how they address local needs in the age of electronic library collections. He explores the question of whether a conglomeration of all books ever published can replace collections developed by librarians who know their patron base.     

‘We're Going to Make You Popular': Popular Collections in the Modern Academic Law Library

One way to promote the relevancy of an academic law library is to create a special collection that generates interest in the patron base; a popular collection is a viable way of reinventing a law library's image in the hearts and minds of the law school community. Popular collections have been championed by general academic librarians because they promote reading and literacy, the use of the library as a place, and such collections represent the shift toward a user focused library model. Using data collected from interviews and analysis of collection development policies this article presents models of popular collections currently in use at academic law libraries, as well as considerations for the creation of such collections.     

“This Is Our Library,and It’s a Pretty Cool Place”: A User-Centered Study of Public Library YA Spaces

This study sought to collect data from teens and librarians about their preferences and recommendations for the effective design of physical library spaces for teens. Librarians and teens at twenty-two U.S. public libraries filmed narrated video tours of their young adult (YA) public library spaces. The researchers used qualitative content analysis techniques to analyze the video data and to develop a framework for guiding the design of effective YA public library spaces. In addition to providing specific recommendations for user-centered YA library space design, this study highlights the need for continued user input into the design and maintenance of YA public library spaces as teens’ needs evolve and vary across time and from community to community.     

On the Road,Playing with Legos®, and Learning about the Library: The Rutgers University Art Library Lego Playing Station,Part Two

ABSTRACT

In Playing with LEGO®, Learning about the Library, and “Making” Campus Connections: The Rutgers University Art Library Lego Playing Station, Part One, the author discusses the importance of outreach, creativity, and innovation to the future of academic libraries. Low-cost making activities, can encourage creative problem-solving skills and be an innovative way to teach students, faculty, and staff more about academic libraries. In this article, the author will look more closely at the hands-on learning experiences that resulted when academic library faculty and staff were introduced to the LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® methodology by means of a mobile makerspace.     

Pop-Up Library at the University of Birmingham: Extending the Reach of an Academic Library by Taking “The Library” to the Students

ABSTRACT

Aligning with student engagement and promotional strategies, a Pop-Up Library project was initiated at the University of Birmingham. This involved setting up temporary, staffed stalls in different locations across campus in order to informally communicate with students and effectively take “the Library” to them. This article discusses the planning and implementation of the Pop-Up Library, including the rationale for the initiative. Details are given of the stalls themselves, the wide range of staff involved, the many locations trialed, the promotional materials used, and the ways in which the venture was advertised and subsequently evaluated. Results of a questionnaire used on the stalls are presented. Conclusions are drawn as to the effectiveness of the Pop-Up Library as a communication tool, with particular emphasis on breaking down barriers between students and library staff, and proactively raising students' awareness of the many ways Library Services can enhance their learning.     

Are You Ready for Your Close-Up? Creating a Library Promotional Video

Learn how to create a promotional library video for your library using the multimedia software Camtasia. Challenges and lessons learned are explored by detailing one reference librarian’s efforts at creating a Ask A Librarian video.     

If a Mouse Clicks at Home,Will the Library Hear the Sound?

ABSTRACT

As the online public library becomes a creation of the Internet, will taxpayers continue to support an institution that is potentially “just another address”? And will the public library have to compete in the image and likeness of Barnes and Noble.com?     

Robots,the Quiet Workers,Are You Ready to Take Over?

Robots are becoming more commonly used in libraries. A robot that does shelf reading and reports the results to human staff is one example of a practical use of robotics in a library. Others have been used to retrieve large items such as boxes, but identifying and picking up small and varied objects such as books is still on the edge of what can be done. Devices using artificial intelligence can act as guides, or in some cases, as personal assistants for library customers. Some are answering questions and learning as they go. If robots can perform library work effectively and more cheaply than humans it is inevitable they will be more widely used.     

The Future of the Library: What Is a Public Library For?

The author suggests that libraries have been transformed a third time. Originally, libraries were the only place that valuable, handwritten, rare books could be found. As mass production kicked in post-Gutenberg, the library became an efficient way for the community to access knowledge. Today, though, in a post-paper world, the library must adopt a new role, a place where the community finds ideas, inspiration and others on a similar journey. The librarian is no longer a guardian of valuable books, but a curator of curiosity, passion and interest.     

“You Lie!” Identity,Paper, and the Materiality of Information

This article uses the problems associated with citizenship verification in U.S. government health insurance programs to argue that paper needs to be analyzed as a media technology. To examine paper as a media technology is to ask, “How does paper work?” and “What are the rules and habits that enable paper to be used in paperwork?” To consider paper as a media technology, this article makes 2 arguments. First, it argues that there is a set of skills and knowledge associated with paper documents that need to be recognized as a distinct form of literacy. Second, this article argues that the relation between paper and identity is an argument about the materiality of information. In focusing on how paper facilitates the materialization of information, this case study illustrates how distinct practices of use create specific relationships between technology and information that give information a distinct functional presence.     

“If the Library Genie Granted You Three Wishes,What Would They Be?”: Results and Lessons Learned From an Annual User Feedback Campaign

The Health Sciences Library at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus implemented a user feedback campaign that successfully provided input about user needs. The library created an engaging marketing theme and employed a simple form to successfully solicit feedback from users. The program has been easy to replicate in subsequent years, and other health sciences libraries have been able to recreate the process at their institutions.     

Motivations for Library Use: Dover,Delaware, Library User Identity‐Motivation Pilot Study,December 2005

Under State Librarian Annie Norman, the Delaware Division of Libraries (DDL) has made notable progress in planning, measuring and advocating for programs and funds that have improved the libraries of that state. A visit to the state library's homepage (http://state.lib.de.us) immediately demonstrates the DDLS sense of purpose in the tagline motto, Delaware Libraries: Infrastructure + Capacity = Sustainability. DDL planning is ongoing, including a 2008 plan to move all the state's libraries forward in the critical areas of economic development, lifelong learning and health information. One document in this planning process was the 2005 pilot study to examine and categorize the motivations for why individuals use the public library. It is that study, a market segmentation study of the reasons why people use the library, that is published here. The study that is the basis for this report was produced under contract by the Institute for Learning Innovation (http://www.ilinet.org/display/ILI/Home). DDL would like to give a special thank you to Dr. John Falk of the Institute for Learning Innovation for his significant help with this study. Presented here in its entirety, the study report can be found on the Delaware Division of Library Services Web site at http://state.lib.de.us/For_libraries/planning/Dover%20Library%20Pilot%20Study%20Final%20Report1.pdf. The editors gratefully acknowledge the willingness of Delaware State Librarian Annie Norman and the Delaware Division of Libraries for the right to reprint this significant methodological example for PLQ readers.

The study is based on two surveys: the first a “user interception survey” of 113 pre and post interviews collected at the Dover Public Library across 20 hours through one week in November of 2005. The second part of the study involved follow‐up telephone interviews with over 25 percent of those who had participated in the first study.     

Microblog Communication Model of Library＇ s Science Culture --A Case Study on the National Science Library, Chinese Academy of Sciences

指出微博已经成为图书馆宣介图书馆特色文化资源、推送综合文化服务,提升公共文化服务职能的有效平台;介绍中国科学院国家科学图书馆所构建的集微博信息发布、微博活动直播、微博大屏幕、微访谈等多种微博服务应用于一体的“微博传播云”模式,认为其能使图书馆的品牌营销有效提升、图书馆与公众之间的“最后一英里”问题得以缓解、图书馆的科学传播模式从“缺失模型”向“语境模型”演进转变。     

Can the Library Contribute Value to the Campus Culture for Learning?

What value can academic and research libraries contribute to the campus culture for learning? How can these value contributions be measured? This paper offers the campus culture for learning as a new frame of reference for measuring the library's contribution to learning. It examines various means of assessing the role a library plays in a campus learning culture. It identifies related outcome assessment goals, and the means of measuring performance are suggested.