FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 14, 2010

Media contact: Larry Godwin
Phone: 1-800-843-8482, ext. 2847
Email: godwin@amigos.org

Amigos Partners with Fearless Future to Offer Online Library Marketing Course

Dallas, TX – Amigos Library Services has partnered with Fearless Future, a design and marketing consulting firm with experience supporting libraries, to offer to offer Selling Your Library Without Selling Out! an online project-based marketing course for librarians.

Fearless Future instructors Mary Evangeliste and Yvonne Mery will guide attendees through the steps needed to create an effective marketing campaign. Class activities will be structured around the actual marketing needs of participants. In true workshop fashion, students will leave the course with a real marketing plan.
The course is scheduled for the Amigos online classroom the first four Mondays in March from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. CDT.

Describing the course, Laura Kimberly, Amigos’ Associate Director and Continuing Education Services Manager said, “This is an excellent course to take within the walls of one’s library and at the same time have access to the ideas of other students and knowledgeable instructors who span the country. Online technology allows us to offer students ample time to learn, develop, and apply new skills, and do so without incurring undue expense. Our participants will quickly find that Mary and Yvonne bring abundant energy and solid experience into the classroom.”

About Fearless Future
Fearless Future is a full-service design and marketing consulting firm committed to collaborating with non-profits and organizations that work towards the public good. Services offered include graphic design, visual identity, web design, print design, marketing consultation, marketing materials, marketing plans, workshops, group facilitation, communication positioning, publication audits, grant writing, and copy writing/editing. Mary Evangeliste is the Director of User Services and Outreach at Gettysburg College and co-author of Bite-Sized Marketing: Realistic Solutions for the Overworked Librarian, published by ALA Editions. Yvonne Mery is an Assistant Librarian at the University of Arizona, Tucson.

About Amigos Library Services
For more than 30 years, Amigos Library Services, www.amigos.org, has helped its members obtain affordable services and share library resources and knowledge. With over 600 members, Amigos is the largest consortium of libraries and cultural heritage institutions in the southwestern United States. Through membership in Amigos, libraries collectively gain access to the latest innovations and services in the library community; pursue opportunities for continuing professional education; leverage their buying power; and preserve the region’s rich cultural heritage. This collaboration strengthens each member’s ability to serve and lead its community in the creative and effective use of information resources. ###

Mary will be presenting with her wonderful and supportive colleagues Maureen O’Brien Dermott (Dickinson College Library) and Katherine Furlong (Lafayette College Library) at the 1st ever Access Services Conference at Georgia Tech Global Learning Center, Atlanta, GA on 11/12/09 at 2:30–3:20 PM

Here is some info on their talk:

You are not alone: managing change in user/access services with compassion and commitment.

In this panel presentation three managers of Access Services share the triumphs, disappointments and the “down right uncomfortable” work of transforming a user/access services department. Changes in the user/access service areas are inevitable; systems change and improve, vendors change, production numbers increase or decrease and technology dictates changes in work flow. How can we learn from each other instead of feeling as if we are in this all alone? How can we strive to create respectful workplaces while also asking employees to change when they are comfortable with the current state of their unit? We will discuss how to conduct a gap analysis to identify areas that need improvement, system analysis to aid in the sometimes-contentious abandonment of legacy services, and the most important component of change leadership –how to communicate clearly and effectively with staff so that are informed, educated and feel that they are fundamental in the success of the transformation.

Mary is very interested in respectful and compassion management practices, you can read more about this in her chapter Guidelines for knowing and showing : from good to great bosses in Staff development strategies that work! : stories and strategies from new librarians

Sorry we have been away for so long!

But, we have great news, you can now order our book Bite-Sized Marketing; realistic solutions for the overworked librarian!

ALA Editions, the publishing imprint of the American Library Association (ALA), announces the release of “Bite-Sized Marketing: Realistic Solutions for the Overworked Librarian,” by Nancy Dowd, Mary Evangeliste, and Jonathan Silberman. This book shares simple and cost-effective approaches to effective library marketing in a format that reflects the way people read today. Filled with contemporary marketing ideas, the authors provide:

• How-tos of guerrilla marketing
• Cutting-edge digital marketing practices
• Benefits of traditional print media

Visually compelling and thoroughly practical, this book challenges librarians to market libraries in new and original ways.

Click here to purchase it from ALA.

Contact us and we can get you a $5 coupon.

Since Mary just posted an article about the fun WITF pledge drive, we thought we would try our hand at our own pledge drive.

Fearless Future started a team for the Susan G. Komen Global Race for the Cure in DC on June 6th. We are asking for people to donate money to our team.

If you donate, you will be entered into a drawing to win 20 hours of design work/consultation from Fearless Future. We could redesign your logo, create a brochure, redo your business cards, walk you though a re-branding strategy all for FREE.

Any amount would qualify you to be entered, but remember this is for a good cause.

You can donate on our team page any time between now and June 6th. Follow the link below and click on the “Donate to this Team!” button.
http://www.info-komen.org/goto/FearlessFuture

If you can be in DC on the 6th, join our team, we would love to have you!

Thank you!!
Fearless Future

** UPDATE **
Team Fearless Future raised almost $1,000 for the Race for the Cure! Thank you to everyone who donated!!

We also picked a winner for the free 20 hrs of work from FF. Congratulations Amanda Werhane from University of Wisconsin-Madison Library!

Mary and I have been working extremely hard on our new book with our good friend Nancy Dowd.

The book, Bite-Sized Marketing; solutuions for the overworked librarian, will be coming out this summer from ALA.
Keep an eye out for it!

2008 brought many great changes and many exciting projects to Fearless Future, so Jonathan and I wanted to take time to thank all of those people and companies that made it such a great year.
Whew!

• January—Mary moved back East in January to central Pennsylvania. After one year as Director of User Services and Outreach at Musselman Library, Gettysburg College she continues to be engaged and excited about her work there. She and her wonderfully smart and creative colleagues are currently in the process of creating an integrated approach to marketing in libraries. Stay tuned for more details.
• April—Jonathan continues to receive accolades about the IM marketing effort he was involved in with American Univerity Library and in April he presented about it at Computers in Libraries with our amazing colleagues Alex Hodges and Patricia West. This campaign proved that a library could create a great looking campaign that matched perfectly with its target audience and clearly stated the benefit of using the IM service to that audience.
• April—Mary presented at CARL (California Academic and Research Libraries) in March with Pauline D. Manaka from University of California, Irvine and fellow fearless colleague Yvonne Mery from the University of Arizona Libraries. We adapted the “Can Libraries be sold as Soap?” for an hour session and Pauline added a section about Energy Star. Pauline is a great library colleague and Yvonne and I hope to work with her again soon.
• May—Mary was invited to be a panelist at the opening session Branding Bravely of at Amigos Library Services and at the same conference Mary and Yvonne conducted a three hour workshop version of “Can Libraries be sold as Soap?” We worked with the wonderful Laura Kimberly and Eddy Smith of Amigos who made us feel so welcome in Texas. Last but not least we got to catch up with one of our favorite fearless friends, Tommie Wingfield.
• May—Mary was invited to be a panelist on College of Dupage’s Library Challenges and Opportunities Teleconference—Rules of Engagement: Attracting and Engaging Library Users. This was the first time Mary was involved in a live, produced teleconference and it took her a while to get used to this format. The entire production crew at Dupage was so amazing, so patient and professional. Ellen Sutton who coordinates the Dupage Library Challenges and Opportunities asked Mary to work with her on the 2009 Library Challenges & Opportunities and together they put together two new programs for 2009. More about them later.
• August—Jonathan’s design of American University Library’s Annual Report was featured in Graphic Design USA’s “American In-House Design Award”.
• August—Mary conducted a three-hour version of “Can Libraries be sold as Soap?” for the Tri-state College Library Cooperative. Mary worked closely with Joy Dlugosz of Eastern University to adapt the workshop to the needs of the organization. Joy first met Mary when Mary was a guest lecturer for University of Pittsburgh’s School of Information Science. Mary does this every April for professor Susan Alman who is the director of the Fast Track program at Pitt. Joy is amazingly energetic and committed to librarianship.
• September—Fearless Future begins work with the Adams County SPCA. First we redesigned their unchaining brochure and in 2009 we will be working on their membership campaign. We are so impressed with the commitment all of the ACSPCA employees and board bring to this shelter; we are honored to work with them.
• October—Jonathan conducts Adobe Illustrator® training workshop for ARGY
• October—Jonathan’s design for American University Library’s Annual Report is also featured inPrint Magazine’s October 2008 Issue “Creativity + Commerce Business Graphics”
• November—Mary brought together three librarians to talk about Information Literacy for Life. This was the first teleconference that Mary helped shape and facilitated. It could not have gone any better. Alex Hodges, Niketha McKenzie and Roshin Matthew all presented about information literacy and their particular populations but more importantly the collaborations that can be created to create a seamless continuum of information literacy throughout one’s lifetime. Keep your eyes of all three of these librarians because you will undoubtedly her more about them.
• November—Fearless Future works pro-bono for ArtLitho to design their holiday card.
• November—Mary has chapter published in Staff Development Strategies That Work! Stories and Strategies from New Librarians. Mary chapter is titles Knowing and Showing : from a good to a great boss. In this chapter Mary recounts eight lessons she remembers from her greatest mentors and bosses. Working with editors Georgie Donovan and Miguel Figueroa made bring this chapter to fruition easy.
• December—Fearless Future submits manuscript for their how-to marketing book soon to be published by ALA entitled “Bite Size Marketing”.
• December—Fearless Future starts work with Julie Strange at Maryland Askus Now to create a commercial to promote their state-wide virtual reference service.

Thank you to everyone for making 2008 a great year!!!
Mary & Jonathan

My goofy girl Lola

Mary and I are so excited!!! We are going to start doing some pro-bono work for the Adams County SPCA in Pennsylvania soon. Which means we get to work with the awesome Lisa Conklin, their director of development.

We will keep you updated on what we come up with. This is really exciting for us since we are both huge animal lovers:

My Raucous Bunch (Roxey, Lola, & Stewie)

Mary’s crazy cats (Steward & Basil)

A great day in Texas. Mary and I gave our presentation/workshop to the Amigos folks in Dallas this past week. The workshop, “Can Libraries be Sold Like Soap?,” was similar to our CARL presentation but we did make a few adjustments. What’s great about the way we have structured the workshop is that we can easily tailor it to fit any size group. We’ve worked with groups as small as ten and as large as fifty. We can also easily cut or add activities to accommodate for time constraints. One hour workshops work, but they’re not as effective as the three hour workshops we have given.

“Can Libraries Be Sold Like Soap?” is constantly evolving. At the core is our commitment to offering a workshop that is engaging, practical, entertaining, and of course, educational. Still, we are always updating it with analyses of new social marketing campaigns and new activities that really allow participants to come out of the workshop with the beginnings of a campaign. The folks at Amigos came out of the workshop with some great ideas including the “Take One for You and One for a Friend” school library campaign and the public library campaign “Steal Music for Free at Your Library.”

We got to meet some great folks from the area including Nancy Hill from UTEP and Betty Long from the New Mexico State Library. We hope to see these folks again and develop workshops aimed at their particular staff and needs. Only regret is that we had to leave so early. Mary to Chicago for another workshop and me back to Tucson for work and three-year old play.

Thanks to Eddy and Laura at Amigos for all the help behind the scenes. Presentation and travel went off without a hitch thanks to their support. And again thanks to our guru, Katya Andresen, for continued inspiration via her book and blog.

One last thing. If you doubt Mary’s presence and stardom, just click here: http://genneaux.wordpress.com/2008/05/09/i-am-a-tool-of-engagement/

The gal’s a rising star!!!

This week Mary is presenting at two conferences. Woah Mama!

Keep an eye out for her if you are attending either of these conferences!

A Brand You World: Amigos Member Conference 2008
Breakout Session with Yvonne Mery
Wednesday, May 7th, 2008

Can Libraries Be Sold like Soap?
When: Wednesday, May 7 – 1:00 p.m. – 3:10 p.m. (Breakout Session)
Speakers: Mary Evangeliste Director of User Services & Outreach, Gettysburg College and Co-Founder, Fearless Future: Marketing for Things That Matter; Yvonne Mery, Assistant Librarian, Undergraduate Services Team, University of Arizona Library
Audience: Branding and Marketing
Traditionally, many librarians have had little faith in commercial marketing, perceiving it as unnecessary and claiming, in effect, that you can’t sell libraries like you sell soap. This session will present an alternative perspective on commercial marketing: social marketing and its applicability to libraries.

Tools of Engagement: Attracting and Engaging Library Users
Library Challenges & Opportunities
Friday, May 9th, 2008

What are the most creative libraries doing to engage current and potential users of the library? Join us as we explore great new ideas for reaching and engaging users and look at some results of users’ involvement in shaping library services, programs, and spaces. This program will go beyond PR, to involving our various communities of users in shaping the libraries of the future. Panelists include an accomplished library social marketer and outreach librarian, a very successful public library director who has integrated her library with other public agencies, a leader in college student engagement programs, and a recent MLS graduate exploring new ideas. This teleconference is 90 minutes–Noon to 1:30 p.m. Eastern Time

Mary and I are always haranguing anyone who will listen about the importance of a solid brand. So, in order to strengthen our own brand, we have launched a new logo.

In order to maintain a little of the old branding, we took the three circles of our old logo and turned them into the windows of the rocketship. By and large, the typography remained the same but our tagline has now changed to more accurately portray our company.

Old Logo	New Logo

We were able to keep our “Retro-Futuristic” look that we love, but make it more eye catching and dynamic.

What do you think? Oh, and check out the new homepage design too…