Thing is, it’s a government site that is pretty useful and has won an award.
http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2009/06/cookcountygenealogycom-wins-naco-achievement-award.html
And also:
http://www.cookcountygenealogy.com/>
Here’s a cute implementation…
June 12, 2009 at 7:39 pm (Marketing, Random Observations, Technology, Things We Should Do)
Brand Tagging
May 26, 2008 at 10:57 pm (Marketing)
For those of you out there who are interested in marketing & branding, or have recently viewed the MCLS Brand Development presentation, here’s a gem of a site that clears up any questions about the worth of brands.
To view the tag clouds for the participating brands, go here – http://www.brandtags.net/browse.php
Patty
Why don’t more libraries do this?
February 20, 2008 at 8:29 am (Food for Thought, Marketing, Random Observations)
I know that we’ve talked about this before, but I like what some of the libraries have done by showing photos of the staff and their names on their website. I think it makes the staff more real.
Upon pouring over the sites for over an hour (seriously) I found that only Penfield has a picture of what looks like the entire staff (minus pages). That seems sad to me. I think what would be perfect (like combining chocolate and peanut butter) would be to have pictures – individual or group, and then have a short little bio of each person. “I like reading horror novels, eating prunes and crocheting doilies” Not too personal, but you get to learn a little about each person.
Penfield Library – I like that whoever to the picture didn’t think to ask Todd to sit down in the front row. Or maybe lay across their laps! 
Brighton Library – they have a photo of each of the librarian managers as well as what they do.
Ogden Library – they have great little biographies of the staff, but no pictures. 
… I do really like the biographies.
Some of the libraries … Irondequoit and Chili have pictures of the children’s librarians, but no one else.
Many of the sites are quite … sad. Sure some of the libraries are really small, but I think they could still do a blog or other type of free website. Let your patrons know who you are and what makes you special! Some seemed to be laid out in quite a confusing way.
I think I was most surprised about Pittsford. The library is on a section of the town website, but still. There really isn’t any information about the library… a couple of PDFs of the programs. At one point I found a cute picture of the director, but I couldn’t find it again.
On Webster’s site, I found a delightful reading of Goldilocks and the Pirate (as read by Jason Poole).
I was trying to figure out which sites I liked best, but honestly, it was pretty hard. I guess I liked Brighton, Fairport, Penfield (although the background was distracting) and Webster.
I was also distressed to see that none of the branches had anything of their own. I know for a fact that (at least the children/teen librarians) are very creative and tech savvy. I’m sure that they could do something. I think that giving staff that space to show how each branch is special and different could be quite beneficial. People might be more likely to go to the libraries if they were to see what each branch had to offer.
I don’t know what got me started on this, but I was pretty bummed after looking at some of the sites. This is the first view some people will have when looking for a potential place to move. I don’t know where I would move. I guess that at this point, I figured that a good website is something basic that every library should have. Even something very basic, but pleasing to the eye. What should we do? What can we do as a committee?
Cathy K @ Prma
Marketing & Branding…One More Time
November 2, 2007 at 8:09 pm (Marketing)
On Monday, I and a couple other people from the MCLS Marketing Team will meet with representatives from the Ad Council of Rochester to discuss steps that will lead to a marketing plan for the system. The team has been meeting since last spring, and frankly, we’ve found ourselves going round and round about what it is that we want to do.
Towards the end of the summer, we realized we needed professional help, so we’ve turned to the Ad Council and the Rochester Regional Library Council to help us on our way.
My question to all of you today is this: How do you think we should we begin to brand and market MCLS? What do you see as the most important features or advantages of the system? We’ve been doing a lot of advertising using the “One County, One Card” theme, which I think is a good one, but what else should we be thinking about?
The system itself has changed dramatically in the last two decades. If we were identifying a “Central Library” by circulation and patron visits, today ours would be Greece. They did more than 79,000 in circulation in September alone! I think that’s pretty freaking amazing. Our member libraries are so diverse that I think it’s going to be really difficult to identify a marketing strategy that is going to benefit everyone. Or perhaps that becomes our strategy — emphasize the strengths and contributions of every library.
I know many of you have shared your thoughts on this before and I’ll be taking those thoughts with me on Monday. Got anything else to share?
Patty
Gotta hand it to those cowpersons…
September 20, 2007 at 7:09 am (Food for Thought, Marketing)
Wyoming libraries have an interesting PR idea , though my favorite at this moment has to be this one: http://www.wyominglibraries.org/rotating/Cold-dead-fingers-bookmark.jpg
Larry
The Way It Should Be
September 4, 2007 at 5:48 pm (Food for Thought, Magical Thinking, Marketing, Special Events)
Last Friday, August 30, I witnessed an event at the Lyell Branch that I hope will be repeated again and again — Mayor Duffy talking to 250+ kids about the importance of reading and the importance of libraries in the reading experience. He spoke about his own reading habits and asked the kids to take a pledge to read everyday. The kids were those who participated in Lyell’s summer reading program and they were there to hear the Mayor and to receive backpacks filled with school supplies, which were provided by Citizens Bank. The scene was repeated at the Lincoln Branch later that day, where 250 more kids received backpacks.
This whole thing came about when Shelley Matthews, Branch Manager at Lyell, decided she wanted to collect school supplies for the kids at her branch. Word got to the Mayor’s Literacy Commission people, who thought they could tie in with Citizens Bank “Tools for School” program. Jean Howard, Hazeldene Hercules, and Steve Schwab worked with Citizens Bank to get 500 backpacks and thousands of school supplies donated by employees and customers. Citizens staff filled the backpacks with supplies, then Shelley and Joan Lee added a book and a library card application to each one.
The kids showed up in force and were very well-behaved as they patiently waited for the Mayor to arrive. Once he got there, it was a party, with the kids getting their backpacks, books and supplies, and then feasting on watermelon, cookies and juice donated by Wegmans. As we waited, I was delighted to see kids reading or talking about books everywhere I looked. Harry Potter was a big topic, as were Spiderwick and Junie B. Jones.
This is what it’s all about people. This is how libraries are going to survive. The key is reading and we have to continue to position ourselves as the focal point in the local literacy movement. The Mayor gets it. And that’s a huge first step. Now we need to find a way to get the County involved.
It’s true that most towns do not face the same crisis in education and literacy as the city, but I believe that there are people in this county who are ready and willing to help do something about that crisis in the city. For example, Michelle Child, who blogs about Chili for the Democrat & Chronicle, wants to organize a book drive once a year to collect new books for kids in the city. We’re talking about having those books distributed to the branch libraries, where they will be given to children who get library cards. Wouldn’t it be great if we could do that throughout MCLS? Every child who gets a new library card gets a free book.
The MCLS Marketing Team will be focusing on literacy in the months to come and we’ll be looking for your help. So be ready! I’m just saying….
Patty
Here’s another library doing a video…
August 21, 2007 at 9:00 pm (Marketing, Random Observations, Technology, Things We Should Do, emerging technology)
except of course we can’t see it here at work *$(* – from Eastman’s online genealogy blog of 8-20-07. I will look at it at home and post a comment.
Allen County Public Library Genealogy Department Video
From the convenience of your computer, you can now take a video tour of the Genealogy Department at the new Allen County Public Library (ACPL) in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Even if you were not able to visit this library during last week’s FGS conference, you can “take the tour” without leaving home via the internet.
The Allen County Public Library contains the largest publicly-owned genealogy collection in the world. The genealogy department contains approximately 340,000 printed volumes as well as thousands of microfilms, CD-ROM disks, and online resources. Your hosts on this video tour are John Beatty and Amy Beatty. John is a Reference Librarian and Bibliographer for the Historical Genealogy Department of the Allen County Public Library.
The video is available in two parts on YouTube.com. You can click on the icon above to watch part #1 or click on the following: http://youtube.com/watch?v=tcqDqc0SXgo
Part #2 is available at http://youtube.com/watch?v=mlYhUwu8waQ
The video works best on a broadband Internet connection, but you can also view it on dial-up connections with frequent pauses. If you use dial-up, you may prefer to use the download service at http://keepvid.com. You can download the video from this site and save it on your hard drive. You can then play the video at full speed any time you wish.
Larry
Who wudda thunk?
August 17, 2007 at 6:01 am (Food for Thought, Marketing, Random Observations)
I was looking at the Diocese of Rochester web site recently for a patron and came upon the podcast page:
(http://www.dor.org/Podcast/index.asp)
As you can see, they have podcasts, RSS feeds…and are even available through iTunes.
Larry
On Branding…Again
June 13, 2007 at 6:09 pm (Food for Thought, Marketing)
Saw this little gem over on Logic+Emotion. What do you think?
Branding is being replaced by design/technology as the future of business.
The dismal nature of the branding science has started to become clear to business recently and they’re starting to vote with their investments and appointments. They’re turning from the people who create perceptions of value to the people who create actual value. (Patty’s emphasis)
I think creating value is one of the things we do best in libraries, but one of the things we do worst is telling people about it.
Larry stopped in my office Monday to tell me about the NYS History Conference he attended last week where he and Jeff Baker gave presentations about our digitizing program to packed rooms. Larry’s room was SRO, with people out in the hallway. I think Larry should give this talk to the Mayor, County Executive, City Council, County Legislature, and our NYS legislative delegation. Do they know about our program already? Maybe. Do they know enough to brag about it? Not likely. That’s what we need to do. Communicate the value we create to the people who will talk about it as a source of pride in our community.
Patty
Look who’s got a MySpace…
June 3, 2007 at 2:27 am (Food for Thought, Marketing, Random Observations, emerging technology)
Jenny Levine wrote about 2 librarians in Chicago who crated a MySpace page, and asked others to vote in the contest for best MySpace in Chicago. Without getting into that, it’s worth noting that the library page made into the final 8. When you go to that page, you can see that they have several MySpace friends, including…Parma (why am I not surprised…—>grin); Niagara Falls Public; and even my old stomping grounds, Buffalo Erie County PL.
