Marketing

teaperson writes "The Boston Globe reported on its front page Saturday that the Boston Public Library is one of the best-funded in the nation, but ranks 59th out of 77 large libraries in circulation.

The Womelsdorf Community Library in Pennsylvania is auctioning off its naming rights "in perpetuity" on eBay. A bid has been placed at $325,000, but that has not met the auction's minimum price tag (the "reserve price"). And before you go and tell the gang at Fark about this, note the all-to-vague "inappropriate name requests will not be accepted" disclaimer. Remember those Jesus bricks?

tangognat writes "The Chronicle of Higher Education features an article, Bridging the Chasm: First-Year Students and the Library about strategies to incorporate libraries into the first-year college experience." Tips include, "make sure that librarians are part of any campuswide discussions of the first year," and trying the "Barnes & Noble approach."

Here's A Neat Idea: The Louisville Free Public Library plans four more free concerts in its "Words for Music" series, designed to promote its purchase of 40,000 music CDs that can be checked out for free.

The featured singer-songwriters are diverse: folk-country artist Iris DeMent, alternative musician Andrew Bird, urban folk singer Dar Williams and the South African group Ladysmith Black Mambazo.

News On A New Plan in Wales by two companies that have won a contract to research and develop a national marketing strategy for library services throughout Wales.Conwy-based design agency blah d blah and Bangor-based marketing agency twelfth man are working together to bring a fresh approach to marketing and communications in the library sector in Wales.

As a follow-up to the earlier-mentioned Audible's "Don't Read" Campaign, Library Journal reports that the ALA has sent a "cease and desist" letter to Audible.com about the ads, as featured on dontread.org.

In an effort to encourage additional support for county library measures up for a vote, the Indianapolis-Marion County Library is directly e-mailing their patrons to contact city officials regarding library funding.Patrons (383,000 cardholders) may choose to be on the IMCPL e-mail list . E-mail recipients are given hot links to two Web pages so they either may join the campaign or ask to no longer get such advocacy e-mail.

infodiva writes: "I just discovered Audible's audio book advertising campaign at dontread.org.

Ok, so libraries already have the best stuff on Earth, but now that “other� best stuff, Snapple, has made it to the Brooklyn Public Library, according to their press release. As Blake mentioned back in April, patrons can pay for their beverages with their library/debit cards (very cool!).

Check out the publicity campaign that a group of Montana libraries put together to reach out to their senior population! The campaign is called "What's Your Story?" and features two new web sites (here's one) and and two commercial spots.