Examples to Emulate

Marketing Early Literacy and Libraries via Text
By Lisa Hoenig
In the area surrounding Michigan’s Ypsilanti District Library (YDL), many families live in poverty, and children’s reading proficiency is low. Yet, almost every household has a cellphone for communication. Seeing an opportunity, several YDL staffers started a text service to support early literacy. Partnering with other local libraries and with educational organizations, they successfully launched a grant-funded service called TALK: Text And Learn for Kindergarten. The initiative, with its simple, colorful graphics and effective promo materials, won a 2019 John Cotton Dana Library Public Relations Award.

How-To

Crafting Engaging Content for Social Media Success
By Sara Roye and Nick Tanzi
Everyone wants to know the secrets of social media: How do you get people to see and interact with your posts? These co-authors share their experiences and advice for making content that people are more likely to notice. They discuss the pros and cons of using bookface photos, historical images, memes, value-driven content, and videos, and they share some of the posts that were successful at the Mastics-Moriches-Shirley Community Library on Long Island, N.Y.

Interviews With Marketing Masters

Up on the Roof With Carol Nelson in Vancouver
By Judith Gibbons
Carol Nelson has a degree in marketing and decades of experience working for organizations other than libraries. She joined British Columbia’s Vancouver Public Library just 18 months ago and says she’s “still learning the library landscape.” Despite that, Nelson and her team developed a campaign around VPL’s Central Library expansion that merited a John Cotton Dana Library Public Relations Award.

In Remembrance

In Remembrance of Peggy Barber, Who Shaped Library Promotion and Marketing
By Kathy Dempsey
Margaret “Peggy” Barber worked for ALA for 30 years and has been widely recognized as a marketing and communications pioneer. In fact, she’s the person behind National Library Week and many other initiatives that are staples in our field today. To mark Barber’s recent passing, Kathy Dempsey touts her achievements and links to a new fund that honors her in case others want to donate.

Marketing Plans in Action: A Step-by-Step Guide for Libraries, Archives, and Cultural Organizations
By Amanda L. Goodman
Reviewed by Barbie E. Keiser
Information resources management consultant Barbie Keiser writes a glowing review of the new Marketing Plans in Action, by Amanda L. Goodman. Its chapters include detailed guides on how to accomplish various publicity tasks. Keiser calls this ALA book “perhaps the most practical marketing handbook ever written.”

This issue announces a new ALA study (“National Impact of Library Public Programs Assessment”), the winner of an Association of Bookmobile and Outreach Services award, and the winner of the Marketer of the Year award.