Four Ways to Raise Awareness About Library Programs
By Tiffany McClary
Making people aware of what your libraries offer is what it’s all about. In this cover story, marketing powerhouse Tiffany McClary, director of communications, marketing, and outreach at the New Jersey State Library, shares recommendations that are sometimes overlooked or forgotten. She includes links, resources, and examples of how the strategies have worked in her state. Don’t miss the barbershop story!

How-to

Building Relationships With Law Enforcement
By Trish Hull, Jennifer Fay, and Vernon Waters
A trio from the Salt Lake County Library system team up to explain how they’ve partnered with their chief of police and other officers to face local challenges together. After using various tactics to make initial connections, the staff members kept working, eventually partnering with police on grant opportunities, a youth court system, and community conversations and events. Bringing officers into library branches—just to get to know the locals, not to be enforcers—has been successful. So has expanding library outreach and collections in the nearby prison. Now, they continue to build on their foundation of cooperation.

Special Report

Celebrating the Winners of the 2018 IFLA BibLibre International Marketing Award
By Kathy Dempsey
Read expanded, illustrated news about the three big winners of the annual IFLA BibLibre International Marketing Award contest. There’s one from the U.S., one from New Zealand, and one from Croatia, and the campaigns cover the new and the old, the serious and the humorous. The article also lists seven honorable mentions from six countries. Each winning project is linked so MLS readers can view, learn from, and be inspired by this innovative work.

Special Report

PLA’s 2018 Theme: Imagine the Possibilities
By Kathy Dempsey
MLS editor Kathy Dempsey braved some wintry weather to attend the Public Library Association conference in Philadelphia in March. She reports on a few highlights, including a session on librarians dealing with the opioid crisis and another on learning how to end longterm programs that aren’t pulling in patrons anymore. Also at PLA: big snow and tiny cheesesteaks.

Revisiting Social Media Metrics Tools
By Jennifer Burke
In this issue, techie and tool lover Jennifer E. Burke talks about many ways to measure your reach and other metrics on social media platforms. She names four places to go to learn about general social media demographics and 11 tools you can use to monitor your accounts and track their metrics. The column includes both paid and free resources.

Video Marketing for Libraries: A Practical Guide for Librarians
by Heather A. Dalal, Robin O’Hanlon, and Karen L. Yacobucci
Jennifer E. Burke, who trains librarians around the country on creating and using videos, reviews this title from Rowman & Littlefield. The authors hail from academic and medical libraries, although they say their book is for any library type. Burke feels they don’t fully appreciate the limitations of public libraries and others with lower budgets, but she doesn’t disagree with them on much else. Video Marketing for Libraries covers everything from planning to production to promotion and includes recommendations for software and hardware.

This issue carries news about an updated “From Awareness to Funding” report from OCLC, PLA, and ALA; a unique marketing-centric integrated library system from OCLC; and the winners of ACRL’s 2018 Excellence in Academic Libraries Award.