Picture Your Library, the sequel

I just couldn’t wait until February, so this year we’re holding our second annual Picture Your Library event during Fall semester– now to be exact!

Last year we had a brand new Flickr page for the Library with nothing in it but pictures for our virtual tour.  So boring.  In order to get some fun content in there, we asked the entire college community to pitch in, take pictures of themselves in the Library and send them on to us.  We got over 80 wonderful and creative photos over the course of a month.

This year, we’re incorporating the oh-so-fun READ mini poster generator from the ALA website.  Unfortunately, the ALA’s website shift happened just as we were about to roll out our advertising.  During that week the link to the generator was down and we just couldn’t track it down on the new site’s server.  I spent a couple days pretty well convinced that I’d have to start the whole brainstorming process over to come up with a new interesting gimmick.  Luckily, Jenny Levine came through for me, and sent me the new link–PYL2 saved in the nick of time.

We’ve got posters going up around campus, a notification went out to our Facebook fans, I’ve blogged about it on the Library’s website, and as soon as the Administrative Assistant to the VP for Academic Affairs returns from vacation next week, I’ll have an Official Communication email go out to all college faculty, staff and adminstrators.

My first marketing push, however, was to the Library staff.  I know I can always count on a good number of them to show unparalleled enthusiasm for my schemes, and last year the bulk of the Picture Your Library submissions came from the behind-the-scenes library staffers– circ, tech services, a/v, and even our student workers.  As librarians, we get ample opportunities to put ourselves on stage and customize our images, our spaces and our interactions with people.  A lot of the photos we got from library staff showed a side of these departments that not only do the patrons never get to see, but also the rest of us in the library never get to see.

I’ve more or less resigned myself to non-staggering responses from the college community at large whenever I request involvement in projects like Picture Your Library, but I’ll keep sending out my emails and blog posts and Facebook notifications because for every hundred people who ignore me, there’s one person who doesn’t.