Assessment of Library Promotional Activities
(From the AIG wiki; originally posted March 2008)
March 2008 Discussion Topic: Assessment of Library Promotional Activities
Ciara Healy suggested this month’s discussion topic, which is based on a message she received from the ALA ACRL Community and Junior College Libraries Section (CJCLS) discussion list. Thanks, Ciara.
Think about libraries hosting non-traditional (in the library sense) events to promote library awareness. These events don’t promote library services and resources directly, but draw users’ attention to the library. For example, the Learning Commons and Special Collections at GA State University Library soon will sponsor a film screening to promote Women’s History Month. The example that was included in the CJCLS discussion list item is GA Tech’s CeLIBration, which gets freshmen in the library to particpate in very un-library activities, like speed dating, retro (board) games, and DDR.
Does anyone have any experience assessing this type of activity? How can we determine the impact of these events on users’ perceptions and use of the library?
The use of the Library as a hospitality space for the powers that be at the school can have some sidestream visibility benefits to the Library.
To my experience, folks coming into the Library for a non-Library purpose see only their purpose – be it meeting, viewing a presentation or attending a gathering. The folks who arrive early, and alone, might browse if they don’t fall back on checking their cellphone or leaving to wait for more people to arrive. If the librarian knows the person that arrives early, then an opportunity is available to “talk up” the Library or show whatever may interest that particular person.
Assessment material would be any followup from the visitors that isn’t related to their original purpose in coming into the Library – ie a request for information, a book, “where you got that poster from”, etc.
Tim Wojcik
I can only imagine a few ways to assess the use of the library as a hospitality space (I like Tim’s description):
1. anecdotally- hope that those who come for the non-library event mention this on a later visit and that the library employee who hears it will record it, etc. Inefficient and not good for gathering enough data to measure impact.
2. survey the non-library event attendees about their perceptions of the library at the end of the event. “Now that you’ve visited the library, would you return for research purposes?” or whatever. Value?
3. focus group of non-library event attendees. Invite them at the end of the event or hold the focus group at the end of the event. I don’t think this would really work.
This made me think about my freshman college year. Having come from a town of 2,500 with the public library in an old house, I was very intimidated about going to the 7-story campus library—so intimidated that I didn’t go for months until I had to do some scavenger hunt assignment. If I’d walked into the library to attend a non-library event and seen what it was like, I would’ve been inclined to go back much sooner than I did. There’s one anecdote for you.
Jennifer
This is an interesting topic. Ingram Library recently formed a friends of the library group and we are starting to host events either during or after library hours. It would be nice to have some type of assessment in terms of how many people who attend an event come back later to use our resources or if it has changed their perception of the library.
Diane
So, how can we determine who comes back after attending an event at the library and whether their library perceptions changed? Any ideas? –Jennifer
ALA in DC hosted illuminating speakers as part of their “Marketing Library to GenX” workshop, The two in particular that caught my interes, Ciara may have seen mention of them on the CJCLS List, are from St. Charles Public Library in IL and started an activities group targetd at twenties and thrities called T N T which very cleverly entices library awareness through non-trad events. If I recall correctly, they gauge/assesse at the end of each event via a brief survey insturment- which seems sensible to me. Check out their site for some great ideas.
As far as what I’ve any experience with (here in a academic setting), our local PR team conceptualized an ad campaign for the school paper that was based on an ad campaign originally run by a local establishment (bar) in the community’s free weekly paper that featured a picture of a patron with the tag line “Guess Who I Saw?” The bar used it to garner interest by showing that interesting/popular/good looking people were there, we did the same to show interesting/popular/good looking people were at the library. And, while I can’t actually address the efficacy of the campaign, the ad space did bring the library to people’s attention. That same season we ran ads (featuring pics of student workers) to promote our feature film/DVD holdings; again, non-trad services to entice the populus…
Finally, to address the value of the survey insturment I would suggest that the brief survey may be the easiest and most concrete way to assess non-trad event attendees change of perception (or lack thereof) regarding the library. The keyword is “brief” though, as anything too involved may sour participant’s perception at just the wrong time.
Jewell
I am a librarian at the Cartersville campus library of Georgia Highlands College and we are “teaming up” with the coordinator of student life and the president of the Book Club (started by a student) to host non library-related events in the library.
For instance, in celebration of National Poetry Month and Jazz Appreciation Month the Book Club has organized a poetry reading for April 23rd and the event will be held in the library. We have contacted the advisor in charge of production of The Old Red Kimono (http://www.highlands.edu/ork/) ,GHC’s literary magazine, and asked her to contact the students who have poetry in the magazine to see if they want to read their stuff. We are hoping to advertise the event in the upcoming issue of ORK and we also plan to advertise the event through student life. There will be food and jazz music playing (hopefully by a student band) and we have set up a display of poetry and jazz books at the entrance of the library just in case the students want to browse afterwards (or beforehand). The library’s involvement is minimal—our role is to provide a venue for the reading—but these events get students to come into our library… and hopefully come back.
Jennifer I like your #2 assessment idea.
Stacy
Hi Diane!
It would also be cool to have a coffee shop in the library. That would certainly draw students–Stacy
GA State opened its coffee shop a few months ago. It would be easy enough to survey students in the coffee shop about how/whether it’s changed their perception of the library
Jennifer
