ALA --- Marketing Virtual Reference Services Program -- Sat 3:00-5:30 (fwd) (fwd)

[Stephen Coffman]

"If you build it, they will come" may have worked for Kevin Costner and the
Field of Dreams, but we've got pretty good evidence now that it dosen't
apply to virtual reference services.  The most successful virtual reference
services out there right now, usually got that way by paying careful
attention to marketing and promotion, while those that have followed the
Costner approach, have generally been underwhelmed with the results.

So, if you are thinking of starting a virtual reference service and you
would prefer not to be 'underwhelmed' by your results, or if you're
currently operating a service and you're looking for ways to improve your
traffic, we'd like to invite you to come and join us and your colleagues at
"Marketing Virtual Reference Services -- or PR for VR"  at the American
Library Association's Annual Conference Saturday, June 15th 3:00-5:30,
Georgia World Congress Center, Room A302.  Sponsored by LSSI on behalf of
libraries and virtual reference librarians everywhere who are working hard
to make a go of it on the Web.

Of course, there is no one ‘right way’ to market virtual reference or any
other service, so we have designed the program to introduce you to a wide
variety of tools and tactics you can use to introduce your service to your
campus or your community, and to make sure they remember it whenever they
need information.  Here are just a few of the presenters and the topics they
will be covering:

·	Karen Hyman, Director of the South Jersey Regional Library Cooperative on
marketing techniques used to launch and publicize the QandANJ statewide
virtual reference service, one of the busiest virtual reference services in
the world (http://www.qandanj.org/)

·	Boyd Karren of Soter Associates (advertising and marketing firm used by
Horizon / Dynix and other library vendors) on lessons from the private
sector, how libraries can take advantage of marketing and media strategies
used in the business world without breaking the budget
(http://www.soter.net)

·	Lisa Horowitz and friends from MIT on effective marketing in academic
environments --- current practice and future plans
(http://libraries.mit.edu/)

·	Gaylord Information Systems on how you can take advantage of the new tight
integration between LSSI Virtual Reference services and the Polaris system
to put a librarian in front of your patrons whenever they’re searching the
catalog (http://www.gis.gaylord.com/)

·	Tracy Strobel of the highly successful KnowItNow project on the various
strategies they are using to market their service in Cleveland, Ohio
(http://www.knowitnow24x7.net/)

·	Linda Wallace and Peggy Barber of Library Communications Strategies (and
formerly of ALA Public Relations) on marketing lessons from the QandA Café
project in Northern California (http://www.librarycomm.com)

·	Tutor.com on how to take advantage of the new integration between LSSI
Virtual Reference and the Tutor.com services to help reach school-age
children (www.tutor.com)

·	And much more.

As you can see, we have a very full program planned, and we hope you will
come away with lots of information that will be useful to you and some great
ideas for promoting your new service.  Everyone is welcome, regardless of
which virtual reference software you are using or thinking of using.  And we
look forward to seeing you all there.



------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~-->
FREE COLLEGE MONEY
CLICK HERE to search
600,000 scholarships!
http://us.click.yahoo.com/DlIU9C/4m7CAA/Ey.GAA/C1XolB/TM
---------------------------------------------------------------------~->

To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
livereference-unsubscribe at egroups.com

 

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/