Category: Marketing

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Marketing Outreach

Article Highlight: The Display’s the Thing

by Sharell Walker

Terrile, V. (2021). The display’s the thing: A successful interactive, analog community college library display. In College & Research Libraries News (Vol. 82, Issue 2, p. 80–). Association of College and Research Libraries. https://doi.org/10.5860/crln.82.2.80

As many community or junior college librarians know, getting students to spend some of their limited free time viewing displays or attractions in the library is difficult. Vikki Terrile of Queensborough Community College faced this challenge once tasked with managing the display case at the entry of the library. The students repeatedly ignored previous attempts to garner student interest based on monthly heritage celebrations or book club readings.

Terrile decided to up the ante with the displays by creating a “Page to Screen” display with movie-related props (filmstrips, clapboards, film reels, red carpet, etc.), life-sized vintage boxes of popular movie theater candy, glitter foam stars, and simulated popcorn made from yellow and white tissue (2021). To take the display to the next level, Terrile added an interactive portion as a simple sticky pad asking, “What’s the best screen adaptation of a book you’ve ever seen?”. Adding the sticky pad proved to be the change the display needed. From the 19 sticky note interactions, Terrile continued the idea and converted the traditional displays into a board for word puzzles and games. The wordplay took off, at one point amassing 100 responses within 2 days. 

The experience showed Terrile that, with a little ingenuity and creativity, it is possible to create engaging and interesting library exhibits that raise interest in library services for very little money (2021). It also demonstrated the intellectual curiosity of the community college students they serve.

Any reader can take away hints from this article on how to create their own interactive library display. Terrile suggest the keys to an interactive display are an act of engagement and curiosity. If you can find something your patrons will want to think about, or something they may find delightfully challenging to think about, they may feel more inclined to interact with your display. While not every librarian may have Terrile’s skill to make popcorn out of a tissue, a simple question and answer board or word game, can intrigue students enough to get them interacting with the library space and faculty.

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Collections Marketing

Presidential Reads

Presidential Reads

by Lindsay Davis

Earlier this week on the CJCLS Blog, we shared some statistics related to reading habits of Americans and asked how you promote reading in your community and junior colleges. President Obama’s summer reading lists and song playlists have been popular over the years. These lists might make for an interesting book display or content to share on library social media pages.

Check out this list of all the books the President has recommended while in office, “Every book Barack Obama has recommended during his presidency.” A few days ago, The New York Times published “Obama’s Secret to Surviving the White House Years: Books,” which offers a look into the impact reading has made on the President’s life. You may also be interested in reading “President Obama’s Reading List.”

Powell’s Books has put together a “Presidential Reading List” for President Obama and President-Elect Trump. What might you add? Let us know in the comments.

And for those of you who may be wondering about the reading habits of former presidents, we have you covered. In 2014, Buzzfeed put together “The Favorite Books of All 44 Presidents.” Also in 2014, Business Insider shared “8 Fascinating Stories About Presidents and their Favorite Books.”

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Marketing Outreach Programming

Promoting Reading

Promoting Reading

by Lindsay Davis

A couple of weeks ago, we shared this photo that was originally posted on the Vintage Books & Anchor Books Facebook page. It generated interest and shock. We also thought it might not be accurate, and we found a 2014 revision. Read this to get the inner scoop. It isn’t as “juicy” as the first version, is it? (Let this also be a lesson in verifying information and not spreading misinformation. More on that later this week…)

Here are two share-worthy resources from Pew and Gallup that paint a different picture on the state of reading.

In 2014, the Pew Research Center released “Younger Americans and Public Libraries.” In the report, 88 percent of Americans younger than 30 said they read a book in the past year compared with 79 percent of those older than 30. You can read the short version from The Atlantic’s overview, “Millennials are Out-Reading Older Generations.” In a poll that was conducted in December 2016, Gallup found that 48 percent of Americans ages 65+ read 1 to 10 books in the last year and 53 percent of Americans ages 18-29 read 1-10 books in the last year. Read more about the findings in “Rumors of the Demise of Books Greatly Exaggerated.”

How do you promote reading at your community or junior college library? Do you have partnerships with the local public library? Contests? Displays? Book clubs? Let us know in the comments.