I very rarely share blog posts, but I think that anyone who is going any kind of promotion/outreach/marketing or whatever you call it should read this.

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/11/the-marketers-a.html

Whew, it feels good to get that off my chest. Now if only I could be a grammar nazi. [feel free to just ignore the thirty or so grammatical errors in this post]

Receding Hairline has a great post on the most common typographical errors.

For example, one of my pet peeves… the ever elusive en and em dashes.

A hyphen… should really only be used when linking words such as ready-made. It shouldn’t even be used mathematically to represent a minus, as there’s a dedicated character for that, too. Most other uses mandate an en dash – as here, for example – or when planning meetings from 1–2. Changing fashions mean the the long dash—this one, called an em dash—is rarely seen, but where it is, it’s usual to render it without the spaces on either side or with special hairline spaces instead.

[via lifehacker]

Yvonne Mery and I will be presenting on Friday April 4th in Irvine California at the California Association of Research Libraries. We will be presenting with a wonderful colleague from UC Irvine, Pauline Manaka. We are presenting a shortened version of “Can Libraries be sold as soap?” Our interactive workshop that focuses on social marketing campaigns and its transferability to libraries.

Jonathan will be presenting with other awesome colleagues, Alex Hodges and Patricia West, on Tuesday, April 8th at Computers in Libraries in Arlington, Virginia. Jonathan and company will be talking about the amazing work done marketing IM service at American University Library. Finally our wonderful friend and co-author Nancy Dowd of The “M” Word is also presenting at Computers in Libraries. Nancy will be talking about how to survive tech exhaustion and instead find the best uses Web 2.0 technology in libraries.

I was working on a new site design with Mary this past weekend, when we started to play around with colors for the layout.
I showed her a website that Adobe created that allows you to create color palettes with up to five colors and see how they interact with each other. The site is called Kuler (get it?? color spelled funny) and is supremely useful. You can create your own combinations or just browse the site for inspiration.

Another site that I love to browse for color inspiration (but have yet to use their palette creation capabilities) is ColourLovers.

Hey All! This is Malia, Fearless Future intern, contributing my first blog post! I just wanted to share some interesting artwork I came across.

While working at the UA library, a good citizen turned in a few lost items one of those being a library card from the Tempe Public Library here in Arizona. I’ve got to say, I’ve never seen a cooler library card! I was intrigued and looked up Tempe Public Library under the assumption that they must have a really awesome marketing department. It turns out there are four specially designed cards by artists in Arizona that have references to the common theme of mass transit. Mary Lucking designed the one I came across, shown here.

Before looking up the design of this card, I had no idea what the image was about. A friend of mine guessed that the guy in the picture was simply taking the light rail. I thought it was a good guess, but it’s actually a scene from the artist’s favorite book called The Master and Margarita, when a cat tries to board a Moscow street car.

Also, here’s an interesting slideshow called Reading Tea Leaves and Campaign Logos I found while wandering around The New York Times website. It humorously analyzes various campaign logos for current presidential candidates. One of my favorites is shown here.

So Hungry! Must hail cab!

Thai Tanic
Thai Food
http://www.thaitanic.net/
1326-A 14th Street NW
Washington, DC 20005
202.588.1186
Brilliant name, and great Thai food in “up and coming” neighborhood. Cheesy decor, but the food makes up for it. Also try one of their specialty, tropical drinks.

Singapore Bistro
Asian Fusion
http://www.singaporebistro.com/
1134 19th St. NW (between L & M)
Washington, DC 20036
202.659.2660
Great Happy Hour Sushi and drinks

Georgia Brown
Low-Country Cuisine (read: Fancy Southern Food)
http://www.gbrowns.com/
950 15th Street, NW (between I & K st)
Washington, DC 20005
202.393.4499
Old fashion, upscale.

Jack’s
French Inspired
http://www.jacksdc.net/
1527 17th St NW
Washington, DC 20036
202.332.6767
Great brunch, crowded after dark, reasonably priced.

Circa
Café/Casual Eatery
http://circacafes.com/
1601 Connecticut Avenue, NW (Dupont Circle)
Washington, DC 20009
202.667.1601
Fantastic food, great location and excellent price.

Charlie Chiang’s
Chinese
http://www.charliechiang.com/
1912 I Street, NW
Washington, DC 20006
202.293.6000
Excellent & authentic Chinese food.

Bertucci’s
Italian
http://www.bertuccis.com/
1218 Connecticut Ave NW
Washington, DC 20036
202.463.7733
Brick oven pizza at it’s finest, a little pricey though.

DC Café
Italian & Greek
2035 P Street NW
Washington, DC 20036
202.887.5819
Small and dingy, but excellent food. Large portions

Pizzeria Paradiso
Pizza
2029 P St. NW
Washington, DC 20036
202.223.1245
The best pizza in DC. However, extremely crowded all the time. Best to go early, or carry out.

The Childe Harold
American
http://www.childeharold.com/
1610 20th ST NW
Washington, DC 20036
202.483.6700
Go and have one of their famous Guard’s Burgers (a grilled burger stuffed with cheddar cheese and bacon), and wash it down with a cold, refreshing beer.

Mary clearly not happy because she isn’t in DC enjoying the food. Photo by Alex Hodges

Austin Grille
Great Tex-Mex
http://www.austingrill.com/austingrillee/
750 E Street, NW
Washington, DC 20004
202.393.3776
I worked there as a wait person for almost two years, and I still LOVE the place
try a swirlie! Giddy up!

Jaleo
Spanish Tapas
http://www.jaleo.com/
480 7th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20004
202.628.7949
Great tapas! beautiful try the sangria
Right next door to Austin Grille
You can make online or phone reservations

Café Atlantico
Central & South American Cuisine
http://www.cafeatlantico.com/
405 8th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20004
Between D and E Streets
202.393-0812
Best Paella in town, I worked here too for a little while, such fun!
Later most night they move the tables back and the dancing begins!

Full Kee
Chinese
509 H St, NW
Washington, DC 20001
202.371.2233
Easily the BEST Chinese food in china town - a hidden treasure!
OH yes I do NOT believe that Full Kee takes credit cards

Zaytinya
Mediterranean Tapas
http://www.zaytinya.com/
701 9th St, NW (Corner of 9th & G st NW)
Washington, DC 20004
202.638.0800
Amazing food and Beautiful architecture and ambiance, all for a reasonable price.

Capital City Brewery
Traditional American Fare
http://www.capcitybrew.com/
1100 New York Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20009
202.628.2222
Great food & beer at a great price!

If you are going to be at the ALA Annual Conference in DC this year, Mary and I will have a booth at the Swap & Shop where we will be raffling off a chance to have Fearless Future redesign the marketing material of your choice (logo, brochure, business cards, etc.) for free!

Head on down to the Washington Convention Center Special Events Area, behind Aisle 600 on the exhibit floor between 11 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. on Sunday, June 24 to enter.

We can’t wait to see you there!

Derik A. Badman’s drawing of Mary

There have been some requests to post the powerpoint “Will it make my teeth whiter? Selling the library without selling out,” from ACRL Baltimore. Below you will find the presentation and the bibliography from the talk.

Derik Badman did a nice write up (and drawing) on the ACRL blog “live from the scene” regarding the presentation.
http://www.learningtimes.net/acrlblog/237/marketing-the-library/

Oh and if anyone took pictures of this presentation would you please shoot me an e-mail? Mary and I were so scattered by then, we didn’t take any for posterity.

Mary and Jonathan at the 2006 Swap ‘n Shop in NOLA

If you would like to catch a glimpse of the splendor that is Mary Evangeliste, you can see her in action at ACRL; Mary is presenting not once, but twice at ACRL in Baltimore this year.

Library as Convener: Collaborations that Build Creative (Academic) Communities

Session Format: Workshop
Track: Collaborations
Theme: Rocking the Boat (innovations)

Friday, March 30
8:30 AM - 12:15 PM

Session Number/Code: W
Room: Baltimore Convention Center – 338

Presenter(s):
Bess de Farber
Grants & Revenue Manager, University of Arizona Libraries
Mary Evangeliste
Training Coordinator-Information Commons, University of Arizona

Program Description:
Learn the art of collaboration through structured facilitative methods that yield creative ideas you never would have dreamed of on your own. The workshop presents a simulation of processes on how to host a CoLAB Planning® session in your library.

Note: This workshop limited to 60 particpants in order to ensure active participation. Pre-registration will be available in February 2007.

Learning Objectives

• Understand the concepts that drive outstanding collaborations
• Plan how to present an innovative facilitative process to discover new collaborative relationships/projects in your own community
• Utilize tools that ensure candidness, follow-through, and commitment to the project end-result

And

Will it make my teeth whiter? Selling the library without selling out

Session Format: Panel Session
Track: The Environment for Libraries
Theme: Lifelines (values)

Saturday, March 31
4:30 PM - 5:30 PM

Session Number/Code: PN
Room: Baltimore Convention Center – 310

Presenter(s):
Julie O’Keeffe
Coordinator of Outreach Services, Marquette University
Erla Heyns Ph.D. Libr
Director, Cornell University
Mary Evangeliste
Training Coordinator-Information Commons, University of Arizona
Patricia Berge
Librarian, Marquette University

Program Description:
Academic libraries increasingly compete for the attention of patrons. Many librarians have begun to embrace marketing of libraries, however, many are still reluctant. How do we move from marketing as an add-on to making it integral to libraries?

Learning Objectives

• Articulate assumptions and obstacles towards marketing
• Describe methods to communicate our professional ethics, as outlined by ALA, through marketing
• Analyze the costs and benefits of marketing