1. PR Campaign

    PR Campaign for Increased Exposure of Local Library

    Research:

    ·      Conduct polls/surveys: Took polls and surveyed the general public on their awareness of library and its offerings

    ·      Interview: set up an interview with another librarian who runs a highly used and successful library in order to compare and contrast what works and what we could be doing different

    ·      Statistics/supporting material: research trends in libraries today

    Situation:

    ·      A local library that was once highly campaigned for is in need. With its construction being completed last year, it is now a fully functioning facility. However, usage rates are low and they are losing money.  The library has become locally known as the most underused facility in the city. Together we proposed to run an awareness campaign to increase library usage.

    Audiences:

    ·      Media           

    ·      Community

    ·      School District

    Objectives:

    ·      Media: to gain 80 percent more reporting in media by end of month

    ·      Community: to increase local awareness to 75 percent in 2 months

    ·      School District: to increase elementary to high school students who use library to 40 percent of student population

    Strategy:

    ·      Media: I want to conduct an increased coverage campaign promoting awareness

    ·      Community: I want to go out into the community and conduct a fun awareness campaign to get people familiar with their library

    ·      School District: I want to promote school awareness on how useful their library can be not only as an educational tool but also a safe place where students can hang out

    Tactics:

    ·      Media: Feature story; news conference – Local librarian Jennifer Brooks will take the news crew on a tour of the library while filming. She will show all the library has to offer, services available, and how easy it is to obtain a library card. This will air on the 6 o’clock news and a feature story will run in the papers.

    ·      Community: Billboards; Host a “Book Bar-b-Q”; Pass out free bookmarks that have directions and contact info of library written on them – There will be two versions of the billboards. One will have a “something old and something new” theme that features latest technologies available in library along with the simple pleasure of just reading a good book. The other billboard will be announcing the community Book Bar-b-Q we will be hosting on a Saturday with special guest athlete Kobe Bryant, who will speak on importance of getting active with reading. It will be held outside the library grounds and offered will be food, entertainment, and library card application booth.

    ·      School District: field trips; informational leaflets for students – The field trips are for elementary students. Tour guide on these field trips will be Jennifer Brooks, local librarian, accompanied by mascot Billy the Bookworm. The leaflets are for older children middle school and high school age. They will contain information such as resource material, available technology in library such as wi-fi, and information on “teen days” which are days when they can come in and buy coffee and eat free doughnuts.

    Budget:

    ·      Salary

    ·      Tactics

    ·      Research

    ·      Evaluation

    Evaluation:

    ·      Media: Compared and contrasted how much past media coverage library has had to today’s media coverage. Exceeded this by 110 percent

    ·      Community: Conducted polls and surveys on community awareness of library; found to have increased awareness by 60 percent; met just under the goal of 75 percent. Goal was to have 3 out of 4 people to have visited the library within the past two months. We met just under this with 2.6 of 4 people having visited the library.

    ·      School District: Looked at library card applications to see how many of the new applicants were 18 or under representing high school down to elementary school students. We exceeded this by 50 percent. 

     /  Notes