Recent Events

Navigation

Tag Archives | Marketing Library Services newsletter

We're Ready to Hit the Ground Running (with help from Boopsie)

By on July 8, 2009 in CIL2010

 

ALA_Chicago_09_Logo

It’s been barely 2 weeks since the Infotoday bloggers said goodbye at the end of SLA’s Annual Conference in DC. Yet it’s time to start up again, this time for ALA’s Annual in Chicago. And with a couple of personnel changes for this next show, we’re rarin’ to go.

We officially begin our coverage on Saturday, July 11, but you might see a couple more introductory posts like this one before then. I’m Kathy Dempsey, and I’ll be kicking off this show’s coverage.

Right now, it’s 2 days before I fly to Chicago for ALA, and I’m pretty much ready to hit the ground running. I’ve registered, I have a hotel room, and I’ve made my schedule. This year, I used a new tool with a funny name to help with my schedule. It’s called Boopsie. Have you heard about it yet?

ALA has partnered with Boopsie so you can access the conference info on your web-enabled mobile phone. I downloaded it quickly and easily onto my G-1 Android (there are dif versions for dif phones). It works like magic! To find the sessions I wanted to attend, I just typed in the first few letters of the title, and choices appeared. I clicked on the correct choice, and Boopsie showed me the full title, speaker names, event description, and best of all, the location.

Those of you with full registration have probably used ALA’s Event Planner for this. But others (like exhibitors and press) don’t have access to the full planner, so I always had to wait to get my printed Final Program on site in order to learn the locations of many of the sessions. Now that’s already done — fantastic! But really, Boopsie is meant to help you while you’re on-the-go.

You can see ALA’s description and download instructions here. I encourage you to download it and try it. (Yep, it’s free!)

Since I’m the editor of the Marketing Library Services newsletter, I’ll be attending sessions that revolve around promotion, marketing, media communication, and PR. So keep an eye out for me at the PRMS all-committee meeting, the PR Forum, and sessions on advocacy and partnership. And I’ll have a table at the Swap & Shop (Sunday, 11a-1:30p, Exh Hall, Special Events Area), where I’ll not only be giving out free sample copies of Marketing Library Services, but I’ll be selling and signing copies of my new book, The Accidental Library Marketer!!

So keep checking back here at the InfoToday Blog for my coverage of marketing- and promo-related events. And if you see me at one of them, please stop me & say Hello! Our other ace bloggers will jump in soon too, and as a team we’re going to be able to deliver some great coverage. Stay tuned!

 ~Kathy Dempsey, Editor, Marketing Library Services newsletter

 

Marketing Mania in Track B

By on October 20, 2008 in IL2008

I’ve been spending my time in the marketing track today, and good ideas and tips have been flying.

The morning began with Nancy Dowd, marketing director of the NJ State Library (and my blog partner over at The M Word). She discussed 10 trends that can give your marketing a "second life," such as relating to people with stories, listening to customers and letting them run the conversations, and promoting your green-ness. She’ll be posting her slides on The M Word soon.

 

Then the crowd heard Aaron Schmidt and Sarah Houghton-Jan do a really useful tag-team presentation on making your web site more useful, findable, read, and used. They told the crowds about tons of websites where librarians should register their own websites so surfers and searchers can find them. And most are free & easy — you can’t beat that!

They’ll be posting their talk as well, and this dynamic duo has a related article coming out in the Nov/Dec issue of Marketing Library Services soon.

One of the afternoon speakers was Geert van den Boogaard, who discussed digital marketing at DOK, the Library Concept Center in Delft, the Netherlands. Geert wowed the crowd with things DOk does, such as greeting people via Bluetooth connections as they enter the building, and screencasting messages within the building on a Wii platform.

One thing that van den Boogaard emphasized was one of my own main marketing points: First, understand your patrons and what they want. That idea should be the foundation of all your marketing and promotion.

~Kathy Dempsey