Monday, August 23, 2004

In the spirit of camaraderie

I'm in the midst of the Great Advertising Upheaval. Yes, I divulge my true self: I do those snazzy ads you see and like. At least, you claim you like them on the annual Library Journal advertising surveys.

Anyway, just finished sending the final ads for WebJunction. I'm working on finishing up placements for OCLC CAPCON, and clearing the trusty whiteboard for ideas on the next round of OCLC Advertising creative. While I was looking in The Crab, the newsletter of the Maryland Library Association, I found a fun article (page 4 of 20: "Ten Things I Never Thought I would Do") that made me laugh, and reminded me why I love librarians.

New Advertising takes shape
This round of advertising is going to be really interesting--and we're operating under a whole different mindset with our advertising this year. Instead of advertising our services to librarians whose budgets are still not being funded at the level they deserve--why don't we talk to the people in charge of funding?

So it's really an educational campaign for nonlibrarians, to understand that libraries are (and should be funded as) the hub of your respective community's infosphere. And that libraries are a good economic investment, as well as an intellectual one. I could go on and on about this project, but my main question is this one: If we could contact your funding bodies with this message of "Did you know this about your Library and what funding them adequately could mean...," who would we contact? Send me names, addresses, Web sites!