we’ve launched a new series in our library to celebrate major publications or creative works by university faculty. other universities have had similar kinds of author series (1), but this is a first for our library. i put out a call for presenters via email through our library liaisons to their respective departments and had one printed flyer at our information desk during new faculty orientation. from those modest gestures my inbox was flooded with requests to present. we decided that with all of the other new programs that the library is sponsoring this fall that we would invite four presenters. those four have now been scheduled and we’re turning our attention to advertising the series. i thought i would share the specific things we’ll be doing, just in case you’re developing a book series for your library and are wondering how to draw interest to it. if you’ve already done something similar at your library, please share your expertise in the comments. is there a promotional technique that you used that was successful? let me know!
the series, called “faculty pub night,” is geared toward the entire university community. that means faculty, staff, students, and the people that live in the surrounding neighborhoods.
- put an event notice up through our campus-wide online communication tool.
- put a notice on our library blog, library news (http://lmulibrary.typepad.com/)
- put a notice on our pages in facebook and myspace
- add a jpeg of the flyer to our account on flickr
- make a libguide for the series
- send print flyers to our two local public libraries
- send some print flyers, as well as pdf versions, to the faculty speaking in the series
- put notices in our local community newspapers. there are four in our area: daily breeze, the argonaut, hometown news, and the la times book events
1. University of Maryland http://www.lib.umd.edu/MCK/booktalks.html ; UMass Dartmouth http://www.umassd.edu/meettheauthor/about.cfm
