Use Cases for Infographics in the Library

Why use infographics in library settings? Telling the library’s story, emphasizing its importance and continued relevance to your community, is key to adequate resource allocation. Visuals such as infographics can better tell a narrative and make that case. Here are some use-case scenarios:

• Present usage statistics to key stakeholders, funding sources, and your community.

• Show—don’t just tell—your library’s users about important new services, programs, or materials.

• Show unexpected results or benefits of using your library’s services.

• Create and share infographics internally in your library or info organization. Illustrate data or statistics to staff to back up a decision or to demonstrate the need for a change. Show customer/user data from customer research you’ve conducted (customer journeys/maps, user personas, demographics plus psychographics) to round out a marketing or communications plan, a strategic plan, or just to make staff from other departments aware.

• Communicate value to others in your academic community. Show infographics of hours librarians spend teaching, leading instruction, number of research methods classes, library instruction programs by department, and whatever else would resonate with individual department heads and deans.

• Wouldn’t an infographic of reference questions asked and answered be more interesting to look at and share than just numbers?

• Make the case for a significant weeding project by showing the age of your collection, deficiencies, and gaps via an infographic, as Beach High School Media Center did using Easel.ly (easel.ly/browserEasel/8643).

To see a curated collection of well-designed, library-specific infographics, check out Librarian Design Share (librariandesignshare.org/category/infographics).

CAVEATS

Not all data works equally well in an infographic. While it’s true that we comprehend concepts and statistics better when illustrated, not every point of data will help you create a compelling infographic. Remember, infographics are more than the charts or tables that accompany a research report or article. Infographics explain challenging concepts, lead readers through a narrative or case you are making, and get a point or perspective across to the reader. Ask these questions of your datapoints when outlining your next infographic:

• Does the data lend itself to visual display? Which datapoints specifically would be best?

• What datapoints will best help your readers/viewers to understand the point the library is communicating? For example, which points help a community member understand the role of the library’s teen services in the overall community, help a news station become aware of the breadth of your electronic resources and increased use of ebooks and audio books, resonate with top management about the library’s alignment with corporate goals, or convince your principal/board/funding source of the age of your collection
  and need for proposed weeding project?

• Is there data available that, when shown visually, better demonstrates an idea than the written word? Would it take too long to make the same point in text only?

• What is the visual theme that this set of data lends itself to?

• How can you make the graphic as easy to read as possible while also visually appealing?

• Does your infographic have a beginning, middle, and end? Do your datapoints draw the reader to a summary or conclusion?