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.

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!

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

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]

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

A few years ago my cousin Ashley, who is quite the fashion plate, tipped me off to the fact that men had started wearing girl jeans. Pockets were in strange places and there were frayed cuffs here and there, but that is nothing in comparison to the filigree that is happening these days. Although, I have to say, even back then I never thought I would see so many man muffin tops.

So I had to laugh when I picked up the current issue of Details magazine at a friend’s house this weekend and read the article It’s Time to Lose the Embellished Jeans by Katherine Wheelock. It is good to see a magazine like Details putting the breaks on this frightening trend of girlie jeans for men; bring back the good ol’ Wranglers and Levis!

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.

Just recently I read a quote from Don Joyce (of Negativland) on Wired and it seemed suitable to libraries and marketing. Joyce says:

“Selectivity becomes of prime importance, whether it’s looking for content or trying to find what you’re looking for in a thousand pages of search results. As Duchamp and Warhol predicted before they ever saw a computer, there is an art and a message in the act of selection itself.”

Working in libraries over the years, I have noticed one thing come up over and over again: librarians do not understand the fine art of selection. Yes, they are well meaning. When an undergraduate comes to a class or to the reference desk librarians always try to tell the student everything.

Instead we need to retrain ourselves to only impart exactly the information that is needed.

In marketing this means that we have to choose our images with great care. This is one of the reasons that Jonathan and I want to rid the world of clip art.

Both Warhol and Duchamp were excellent at picking out something in everyday life and calling it art. Warhol’s most famous piece of art is the Campbell’s Soup Can and Duchamp’s is the Urinal—and before you can say “I can do better than that”–the truth is you didn’t!—And that is the thing about art and selection and I think that we should all embrace this idea: every image we use to promote our services and activities has weight, so choice carefully!

Every person should consider themselves an artist when choosing, because in our overly media saturated world the choice itself becomes a kind of art.

Hey don’t get me wrong, if you happen to be a librarian and you also love these tools and you use them to talk to your friends then by all means bring your library-ness along for the ride. What I object to is trying to fit a round peg into a square hole. I guess what I am saying is don’t force it!

I think going onto myspace after a certain age (and I am definitely of that age) is kinda creepy. It reminds me of when I was a young alt-youth trading obscure music all around the country with friends. Everyone was sharing music through the mail and it was intimate and oh-so age specific, I mean back then you didn’t hear of band like the Flaming Lips until someone snuck them into a mix tape and then you were hooked. Then there were always these creepy older guys hanging around who wanted to be in the scene, they wanted to pay to take you to a show or something else enticing (especially when you are broke). It always felt forced and just, well, weird and if I were in my twenties and logging onto myspace every five mintues (which I am sure I would be doing) I would not be looking to talk with my librarian.

I think every generation should have there own space, and by the very definition of individuation, it should be theirs alone.

But, here is a social networking site I can get behind. Good Reads: check me out
What did nerdy people like me do before the internet? Trade books and tapes with friends through the mail, of course. So Goodreads is just a logical extension for all of us now scattered across the country. We look at each other’s stuff –like the other day I saw two friends, one in DC and one in Austin, reading the same book-hmmm! They don’t know each other so you can bet I am interested in this book now…

Speaking of Austin, if you are into music you should check out two documentaries that are sad, strange and beautiful:

Your gonna miss me : A film about Roky Erickson

The Devil and Daniel Johnson

Hello everyone!

Please excuse the non posting this past week; both Jonathan and I are deeply immersed in our own university-wide marketing plans at the moment.

American University has once again proven that their edgy designs can be executed with very little money but with maximum results. This year Jonathan designed a fabulous aluminum water bottle that is so cool I’ll bet students will begin hoarding them. AU is also planning a launch party for their new 24-hour schedule; finalizing details, gathering sponsorship, and making costumes (they are going to have a robot, a monkey, a ninja, and a pirate there to match their new post-it notes — see image above)

Here at University of Arizona Libraries we are putting the final touches on our second annual Amazing Library Race. An orientation event meant to break down barriers and eliminate misconception students have about the libraries resource and services. Last year was so successful and so much fun that we are starting to make a name for ourselves on campus. Last week we showed up on the home page of the University of Arizona. No small feat indeed. This is definitely because of our strong branding of the event and all the thanks for that goes to graphic designer Marty Taylor – Thanks Marty!

The thing that I like best about the Amazing Library Race is the engagement of the staff involved, they are so dedicated and they create their own questions and displays -they are wonderful and energetic. It is so great that last year the staff said that they enjoyed the event especially for the fact that the got to work and have fun with people in the library that they rarely see… these kinds of comments make all of my work worthwhile!