Webcast: Push, Pull, Delight: My Library, My Collection, My Expert

Our communities are facing a challenging economic future, and in every way, library services and staff are affected. Asked to provide more service with less funding, libraries need to maximize usage of print and electronic resources to enrich and extend the library’s impact and value to the community. Likewise, libraries should position their staff as experts in creating and managing the collections that best serve their communities.

Anticipating leaner budgets, libraries are looking for ways to help their patrons rediscover the collection beyond the Just Arrived shelves and Best Seller lists. Reaching patrons via email is proving to be an increasingly popular and effective form of communication, giving libraries the opportunity to be part of a community’s information sharing system and offer highly personalized service. By inviting patrons electronically into the library’s virtual home, it is possible to expose even more of the institution’s resources and services. Through the promotion of the library’s key resource, its staff, the library will be further identified as the source for expert knowledge, fostering greater community support.

Push, Pull, Delight features a panel of collection, outreach and marketing experts who will discuss methods being used in their libraries to deepen and extend services and collections to patrons with ever growing expectations, and information appetites.

PANELISTS:

Rhonda Glazier, Collection Development Manager,Jefferson County Public Library (CO) – In January 2009, JCPL began offering a Personalized Reading Recommendations online service. Patrons provide information about specific reading likes and dislikes, and readers’ advisory staff create a personalized reading list which is then emailed to the requestor. Rhonda will outline the process of delivering these suggestions, marketing and training for the service, and the success of the program for both patrons and staff

Judith Hiott, Chief, Houston Area Library Automated Network (TX) – For several years, Houston Public Library has made an effort to market and place online services in proximity to established popular library services. Marketing NextReads newsletters as part of their popular online holds service and bringing readers advisory recommendations into the library catalog are fruitful examples of these efforts. Successfully implementing these efforts requires involvement of library staff on a variety of levels.

Alison Circle, Director of Marketing, Columbus Metropolitan Library (OH) - In an age of Google, where books and information are everywhere, our key differentiator is our people. Columbus Metropolitan Library is finding innovative ways to position its collection development selectors as the library brand, using technology, events and social networking tools to do so.

Moderator: Duncan Smith, Creator and Project Manager, NoveList, EBSCO Library Services

The inaugural showing of Push, Pull, Delight: My Library, My Collection, My Expert, sponsored by EBSCO Library Services, is on Wednesday, May 13, 2:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time.