The Giovale Library Information Commons Media Campaign for the 0506 Academic Year

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The Giovale Library Information Commons Media
Campaign for the 05-06 Academic Year
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Overview
13 points were raised by the Information Commons
Survey and other sources (such as word of mouth
and frequently asked questions at the Reference
Desk) as being in need of publicity on
campus. This plan aims to create a campaign that
can be put into place this summer, when were
less busy, so that it can be activated over the
course of the coming academic year without
additional preparation or maintenance. The plan
calls for 13 targeted marketing messages to be
distributed throughout the campus by postcard,
email, the Dear John newsletter, and the Web over
the course of the 05-06 academic year.
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13 Points
13 points were raised by the Information Commons
Survey and other sources as being in need of
publicity on campus reserving study rooms
workstations online tutorials help ask a
librarian refworks the Information Commons the
cafe remote access food drink in the
Library extended hours for finals getting copies
of articles popular reading videos quiet study
areas multimedia stations
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Back to 13 Points
Reservations
Users voice continued frustration over not being
able to use collaborative workstations for group
projects because they are all occupied by
individual users. There would be no advantage to
us to keeping the collaborative areas vacant when
no groups are present, so we need to raise
awareness on campus both that groups can reserve
workstations and study rooms and that library
staff will find groups a place to work (i.e., ask
individual users to move) on request.
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Back to 13 Points
Online Help
Users remain unaware of the variety of
do-it-yourself help that is available to them
online through our "How do I...?" page. While
library staff include links to the appropriate
areas of this page in answers to email reference,
point out the page to users during point-of-use
instruction, and show the page to classes during
orientations and library instruction sessions,
including a message about this page and the
resources on it to the campus at large should
help us put more users in touch with the
resources that they need.
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Back to 13 Points
Ask a Librarian
Users remain shy about approaching I.C. staff for
help, and studies of the current college-age
population show that they most often turn to
their peers for help. Publicizing our various
Ask a Librarian services, stressing our
friendliness and willingness to help could
encourage users to come to us when they need to.
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Back to 13 Points
RefWorks
The popularity of RefWorks on our campus has been
wonderful, but we need to continually get the
message out to our users what RefWorks is, what
it does and does not do, and that they can
schedule a session to learn RefWorks they can
learn RefWorks through an online tutorial they
can request their instructors to schedule a
RefWorks session for their class that the Library
periodically offers open sessions and that it
takes, at the bare minimum, 40 minutes or more to
get started using RefWorks
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Back to 13 Points
Info. Commons
The bundling together of the Library, Computing
Lab, and Writing Center under the umbrella term
"Information Commons" has resulted in a number of
benefits for our users, all of which they need to
hear about. Publicity should include the
proximity of diverse services, the collaborative
work areas, the availability of technology and
library resources, and more.
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Back to 13 Points
Cafe
If what we have heard from our colleagues at
other institutions is true, the '05-'06 academic
year is when we can hope to see business at the
I.C. cafe really take off. We can help to make
that happen by continuing to advertise our
cafe hours products for sale that users can
pay with cash or their student accounts
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Back to 13 Points
Remote Access
Many users, even if they know they can access
some I.C. services online from off-campus, aren't
aware of everything else they can do access
library catalogs and databases use RefWorks from
off-campus access H drive renew library
materials 24/7 Live Chat and email
reference Quick Tip sheets from tech support
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Back to 13 Points
Food Drink
The installation of the I.C. cafe has caused some
confusion among users about if and where food and
drink are now allowed in the Library building.
Some publicity clarifying I.C. food and drink
policy should be welcome. We could also consider
using this as an opportunity to point out our
standards of acceptable behavior in general.
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Back to 13 Points
Hours
It's important each semester to advertise
extended hours for finals as well as shortened
hours during semester breaks. But there are also
users who are surprised that we close earlier on
Fridays than we do on Mondays through Thursdays
and that we open late on Sundays. Keeping users
apprised of I.C. hours is a courtesy as well as
another opportunity to raise awareness of 24/7
remote access services.
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Back to 13 Points
Getting Articles
Getting the word out about how to obtain copies
of articles is an ongoing battle. The procedure
has also changed with the loss of the UTAD
service. This campaign is another venue we can
use to introduce students to the basic procedure.
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Back to 13 Points
Popular Reading
The revitalization of our Popular Reading
collection, as well as the ongoing growth of our
feature films collection, combined with comments
in the I.C. survey about a desire for more
leisure reading materials, means that we should
be advertising this. This may not be something
we advertise heavily because of the non-academic
nature of the collections, but some discreet
notices would not be uncalled for.
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Back to 13 Points
Quiet Areas
The cafe and the collaborative workstations have
raised the level of conversation and background
noise on the first floor, to the expressed
irritation of users who want a quiet place to
work. Advertising which areas of the building
are designated as "quiet study areas" could both
encourage their use as well as alert patrons who
want to talk that they should really be moving to
the first floor. This would also be an
opportunity to raise the issue of cell phone use
in the building and why it is discouraged, as
well as an opportunity to draw attention to our
standards of acceptable conduct in general.
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Back to 13 Points
Multimedia
The two multimedia stations on the first floor
are a great resource for students using
technology in their classes. We should advertise
what they're capable of, that peripheral
equipment and materials are available for
checkout from the Circulation Desk, that the
workstations can be reserved, and maybe even a
warning against using them for piracy.
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Postcards
The postcard campaign we initiated in the '04-'05
academic year proved to be an economical and
effective way of spreading our message throughout
the campus. Postcards, such as the one
advertising the I.C. in general, were delivered
to the residence halls, scattered throughout
classrooms as evening classes were beginning, and
distributed at the Reference Desk and at the I.C.
promotional table at campus events such as the
Undergraduate Research Fair. This year we could
also distribute them at the campus concierge desk
in Shaw, and arrange to have them posted on the
campus bulletin boards as well. Having them
ready to go by the start of the school year would
mean we could get approval from Student Services
to have them distributed in the dorms all at
once. If they were all printed by the start of
the school year as well, we could have all of
them available at the I.C. promotional table at
campus events, and at least several of them
available at service desks. I have prepared a
calendar of which postcards could be sent when
over the course of the '05-'06 academic year,
taking into account College holidays and semester
breaks.
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Email
We already use campus email to distribute the
Giovale Whisper and notices about upcoming
RefWorks open training sessions. We could also
use the campus email to supplement the
distribution of postcards. The language and look
of the email messages would approximate that of
the postcards. The research I have read shows
that Wednesday mornings before lunch are the best
time to send such emails, and I have prepared a
calendar reflecting that. Note that there is not
an entry for RefWorks as we will continue to send
out regular bulletins of upcoming open sessions a
day or two before they occur.
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Dear John
The Dear John weekly newsletter did a great job
in the '04-'05 academic year of keeping users
informed about our RefWorks open sessions. The
Writing Center is also using it to publicize its
hours and services. We can also post the
abbreviated texts of the messages we send out by
postcard and email to reach more users as well as
keeping our messages in the minds of users who
have also seen them through another venue. For
the Dear John calendar, I have again eliminated
the RefWorks message as we will continue to post
regular updates of upcoming sessions as we did in
'04-'05. I have also dropped the general I.C.
message in favor of advertising extended hours
for finals in both the fall and spring terms.
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Web Site
There are at least 2 ways we could use the Web as
part of this campaign. First, the revolving
"Library News" text could be used to display
abbreviated text of the postcard and email
messages as they go out. We could also use this
space to rotate two or more of these messages
simultaneously over several weeks. Second, we
could develop something like a FAQ page that
displays the text to all 13 messages. This could
either be a web page that Jennifer and Krystal
develop, or just a document that I keep in my W
drive. A link would be provided on the
postcards, emails, and Library News messages, and
users would then have immediate access to all 13
of the points we have determined need to be
publicized. RefWorks sessions and extended hours
notices would be added separately as the
appropriate dates approached.