Library publicity 2011

Our students return/begin next month, and this year I have designed postcards which will be given to all of them as a welcome and as a publicity tool for the library.

Here’s the picture on the front (showing one of the library’s reading rooms):

And the message on the back:

The main texts reads: “Visit your college library to browse; to borrow, renew or return your books; to discover; to make an enquiry; for help with SOLO; to learn how to use e-resources; to make a suggestion; to catch up; to work quietly; to ask a  question; to find an answer…”

SOLO is the interface to the main library catalogues at the University of Oxford.

The QR code points to the online library guide.

See also:

Library publicity for the new term (September 2010)

Monitoring my personal brand on the web

This post is part of 23 Things for Professional Development.

Here is the result of my Google vanity search:I included extra search terms as my names are too common to use alone, and mostly return hits about the eponymous Olympic diver (definitely not me!).Good news though, all these hits are relevant: my LinkedIn profile, a SCONUL Focus article I co-wrote, a profile of my library within the Oxford University libraries directory and my Twitter account.

However, my blog isn’t there, though a search for “Laura Wilkinson librarian” does find it (8th hit).  My blog is the main site I would want people to find if they were searching for me.

I don’t think there is anything about me on the results page that I wouldn’t want a potential colleague/employer finding out about me, as I hope I wouldn’t put anything like that on the open web to start with.

I have used the same photo of myself on my Twitter, blog and LinkedIn sites to help keep my personal brand consistent.
I could improve my personal brand by changing my name to something unique.  I started to search for name generators and found some pretty dodgy sites, including this one which creates a whole false identity for you. Perhaps I’ll stick with who I am, and try to improve my search engine optimisation, hence all the self-referential links in this post!

Library publicity for the new term

The academic year at Oxford starts in a few weeks’ time, and I am preparing library welcome packs for all our students.

Each pack contains a library bookmark, badge and map of all Oxford libraries.

The bookmark includes contact information for the library, opening hours and details of the lending rules.

There are 16 different badges. Each one has ‘St Hugh’s College Library’ around the edge and one larger word in the middle, e.g. Borrow, OxLIP+, SOLO, Browse, Enquiry, Citation. The aim is to familiarise the students with the vocabulary of the library, and I hope it will also generate a buzz as people compare badges with their friends and work out what all the terms mean.