Resolution #9. Create Great Programming

What’s great programming without great marketing? A resolution is basically a goal, and to reach the goal you need “action plans”. A programming goal needs specific steps to reach it as well, and that includes marketing!

As mentioned earlier, the Ohio Library Council, thanks to financial support from the Drew Carey Fund, has developed an online training resource, entitled “Marketing the Library.” It’s comprised of six self-paced training modules, and it includes links to marketing resources, examples, quizzes and exercises. Planning, products and promotion are all covered in this free, comprehensive training program.

In my Librarything resources the library program tag has 8 books, 6 library specific and all of those dealing with children and youth. My favorite is Toddle on over : developing infant & toddler literature programs by Robin Works Davis. The one with the most members sharing (15 as of today) is Outstanding Library Service to Children: Putting the Core Competencies to Work by Rosanne Cerny.

In my del.icio.us resources tagged with “programs” I used the example of the IMLS Youth Initiative, as a way of capturing more members. Iml.gov currently has 151 members sharing it (up from 130 in August). The IMLS Youth Initiative has none, zero, but it’s still a great resource for ideas and funding!

So, rather than have a link shared by no one, I put the top level domain name in as the link, and the real url in the notes section, which shows directly under the title. I’m hoping that in seeing “saved by 151 members”, people stop to take a second look at a resource in what might be a cluttered screen for them.

Having the proper page title and URL below it, will aid in finding the resource, after a user clicks and gets to the main home page for the Institute of Museum and Library Services. They may be momentarily confused. Once again, the full url (http://www.imls.gov/about/youth.shtm) had way fewer hits, 0, than http://www.imls.gov so I used the one with the most members sharing, but it’s a resource-rich page about helping youth learn.

To me, the ends of sharing funding sources and programming ideas justifies the means of a temporary misdirection. Feel free to leave comments on this!

I have bounced this idea off other people I know, and no one argues with me. Support networks are essential to making good decisions, creating good ideas, and adding elbow grease to carry off complex programming events.

And that leads me to our final resolution, #10…Build Camaraderie!

-Ed Rossman, Interim Branch Manager for the Bertram Woods branch of the Shaker Heights Public Library and author of Castles Against Ignorance: How to Make Libraries Great Educational Environments

Click here to access an archive of Ed’s webinar and a PDF of the slides he used.