ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries 5 0 2 /C& RL News M arketing the library: The library media fa ir B y C h eryl LaGuardia and Janet Martorana Getting the word out about library technology I n recent years our library, like m any oth­ ers, has gone from being a technologically static organization to one that provides a wide array of online services. Our patrons now have access to online and ondisk research tools lo­ cated both on our hom e systems and all over the w orld across the Internet. Unfortunately, comparatively few of our clients know w hat w e offer. Patrons still tend to come to libraries for traditional types of bibliographic information in traditional formats: books, journals, tapes, etc. They go elsewhere for the exciting, cut­ ting-edge resources: to information brokers for “the new est update,” to com puter centers for computer-assisted instruction, to microcomputer labs for graphics and publishing resources, and to com puterized writing centers for some of their m ost pressing and creative needs. Libraries offer free access to m uch of the same information patrons have to pay for else­ w here. But since our regular clientele doesn’t think of the library as being in the vanguard of c o m p u te r d evelopm ents, our com puterized services have been under utilized. It is frustrat­ ing and wasteful to have both information and access, but not to have m uch of a clientele. More importantly, given the “downsizing” go­ ing on in libraries, higher use and dem and for our com puterized services w ould help us jus­ tify our veiy existence. W h a t w e h a v e n 't told them Given the am ount of time and effort it takes to plan for, develop, and implem ent com puter­ ized systems and services, it’s not terribly sur­ prising that w e ’ve overlooked one elem ent in our technological program, but it is key: p u b ­ licity. We must get the w ord out to our pri­ mary clientele that w e can do for them what they’ve been going to others for. Just as we w ere responsible for making the system or the service available, so too are w e responsible for letting users know it’s ready to be used. O ur library has a committee, the Library In­ structional Services Committee (LISC), w hose main purpose is to plan, develop, and coordi­ nate instructional activities throughout the li­ brary. With our recent rapid technological ad­ vancements, this committee focused on developing strategies for publicizing our online and ondisk services across campus, and for instructing pa­ trons in the use of those systems. We have tried several advertising and in­ structional techniques: sem inars for “faculty only,” drop-in online instructional .sessions, re­ search consultations, newsletters, and more. These w ere partly successful—w e got a small response— but none of them brought people into the library in the large num bers w e need to reach. We have a potential primary-use cli­ entele of over 20,000, and those programs were reaching only 20 or so people at a time. So w hen w e heard that the university was sponsoring a campus media fair for com puter projects, several of us took part in it. We had no portable systems w e could transport to the fair, but w e reserved an exhibit booth and took boxes full of printed literature and guides de­ scribing our com puterized services and p ro­ grams to distribute. Going to the fa ir In that one day by participating in this fair we reached m ore graduate students and faculty Cheryl LaGuardia is coordinator f o r computerized information services a n d Ja n et Martorana is coordinator f o r library instruction at the University o f California, Santa Barbara We Update Y earley.(And over 81,000 other names.) 504 /C& RL News than w e had in any five of our other special library sessions. The very nature of the fair in­ vited mass participation: it w as set up in the University Center (a focal point on campus), it w as arranged so people could w ander in and out at will— strolling past exhibits but not nec­ essarily devoting their attention to any one item— and it offered a variety of individuals dem onstrating their special interests: projects they had been working on daily for m onths or years, about w hich they w ere enorm ously e n ­ thusiastic. W atching the excitem ent generated by this fair, it occurred to us w e could adapt the concept for our purposes. We wanted to show o ff the library with an eye toward its most favorable, forward- thinking functions. We w anted to show off the library with an eye tow ard its most favorable, forw ard-think­ ing functions. We w anted to let our potential users know that w e had the m eans to respond to their individual research needs, and that w e could show them how to get easy access to very current, valuable information. What bet­ ter w ay than by having our ow n media fair in the library? M a k in g it our o w n LISC decided to replace several other planned program s with a high-profile Library Media Fair. We did extensive publicity for the event: w e placed color ads in the cam pus new spaper, plastered bulletin boards with bright, inviting posters, got som e public-service a n n o u n c e ­ m ents on the cam pus radio station, and hand- distributed a snazzy flyer describing the event to all faculty and graduate student mailboxes. We called faculty colleagues (at UCSB, every public service librarian is also a m anager of one or m ore library collections) and urged them to get the w ord out, too. LISC comm ittee m em bers assem bled the fair in our largest, m ost accessible library m eeting room, and staffed the various com puter w ork­ stations and booths. We had plenty of technol­ ogy to showcase. In addition to our new on ­ line public access catalog, w e m ade over 50 CD-ROM databases available. The University o f C a lifo rn ia s y s te m w id e o n lin e c a ta lo g , MELVYL, also runs m any journal and new spa­ p e r index databases. We had plenty of free passw ords ready to issue to faculty and stu­ dents for searching these databases remotely, as well as step-by-step instructions for calling in, making connections, and searching. We w ere ready to show interested travel­ lers m aps and pathw ays through the Internet. We had six w orkstations in place to access the CDs, OPAC, and MELVYL. W e’d done all the advance w ork, next w e w aited to see the re­ sults. O p en in g d a y The first to arrive w ere other librarians w ho w anted to see w hat w e ’d done and offer moral support. Next m em bers of the library adminis­ tration w andered in— the pressure was on us for a high-volume turnout. They took up stra­ tegic positions for counting heads. If the fair did not pull in the num bers, w e w o u ld n ’t be repeating it. Then the clients starting coming in. By ones and twos, they strolled through the fair, going from station to station picking up guides and information sheets, stopping to w atch a dem ­ onstration or talk with a searcher about their particular interests. More librarians appeared and w e pressed them into service: users w anted in-depth consultations, they w ere ready to talk with a subject specialist, they had to get that free MELVYL passw ord now, and how was it they could search D artm outh’s catalog? At sev­ eral points, w e had to take nam es and num ­ bers for follow-up contacts— there just w e re n ’t enough of us to cover everyone’s questions. O ne of the m ost oft-repeated comm ents that day was: “I didn’t know you had this,” or its variation, “I didn’t know the library could do this for m e.” Our keenly satisfying reply was, of course, “Let me show you this, too!” The s w eet signs o f success W hen the fair was over, w e easily counted it a success. From talking with participants w e knew w e ’d brought in p eople w ho had never used these services before. We also m ade crucial connections with faculty departm ent heads and graduate students just starting their research. W e’d distributed stacks of printed material to individuals willing to take them back to their departm ents and pass them around. We effec­ tively illustrated that the library was very m uch (continued on page 511) October 1993 / 5 0 5 It's called a semiconductor chip mask w o rk — the unique design, o r fingerprint, of a computer chip. F or U.S. high-tech firms, the creation of new, m ore advanced chip designs involves a huge investm ent. But f o r p ro d u c ers in some nations, computer chips are fair game — easily copied and enormously profitable. The pro tection o f Intellectual Prop erty — YEARS IN RESEARCH, MILLIONS IN DEVELOPMENT AND RIPPED OFF OVERNIGHT. s u c h as c h ip m ask w o r k s , p a te n t s and trademarks — is one of the most hotly debated topics worldwide. And it’s just one of thousands of important topics you can explore quickly and thoroughly using PAIS International. Gain a global perspective PAIS provides easy access to over 350,000 hard- to-find journal articles, government documents, statistical directories, monographs, conference reports and more from all over the world. From public policy to international law, from trade to demographics, PAIS connects you to information y o u w o n ’t fin d a n y w h e re e ls e . P lu s, PAIS provides a global perspective via references to literature published in French, German, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese, as well as English. N ext time you have a tough question, don’t get ripped-off. G et connected with PAIS. Public Affairs Information Service®, Inc. 521 West 43rd Street, New York, NY 10036-4396 800-288-PAIS, 2 12-736-6629 (in NYC) Fax:212-643-2848 5 0 6 /C&RL News October 1993/511 • Psyc@PUCC (Psycoloquy; all areas of Psy­ chology) • Psygrd-J@UOTTAWA (Psycgrad; Psychol­ ogy Graduate Student Articles) • Psyche-L@NKI (Psyche; Consciousness) • To brow se archives of Internet serials, G opher to GOPHER CIC.NET 70; choose Elec­ tronic Serials, and then the alphabetical listing, and under “p ” you can browse or retrieve is­ sues of Psycoloquy or Psycgrad from this site. Electronic conferences (Listserv lists) Conferences listed below are a sampling of the over 20 in psychology which are currently ac­ tive. To subscribe to the electronic conferences listed below, follow the sample shown above for subscribing to electronic journals. • AUnSM@SJUVM (Developmental Disabilities) • BEHAVIOR@ASUACAD (Behavior Disor­ ders in Children/Youth) • ADDICT-L@KENTVM (Addictions other than Alcohol/Drugs) • MPSYCH-L@BROWNVM (M athematical Psychology) • DIV28@GWUVM (APA’s Div 28; Psychop­ harmacology) Grants and funding in psychology • Abstracts of NSF Grant Awards in psychol­ ogy (from 1990): G opher to STIS.NSF.GOV 70; do a keyw ord search on psychology after choosing the Index to NSF Award Abstracts. • Announcements of Grants/Funding in psy­ chology: Subscribe to APASD-L; subscription address is LISTSERV® VTVM2. • Also: Telnet to INFO.ACS.UNC.EDU (login INFO), choose Research, and then search key­ word “psychology” in Grants and Funding Index. S o ftw a re an d com puter use for psychology research The first two of these items have brow seable/ retrievable archives; and MacPsych is keyword searchable as well. • Reviews of Psychology Software: G opher to BARYON.HAWK.PLATTSBURGH.EDU 70; choose SUNY Plattsburgh Information and then COMPSYCH. • Psychology Research with the Macintosh: G opher to GOPHER.STOLAF.EDU 70; under Network Resources, then St. Olaf Mailing Lists. • Discussion of Experiment Generator Pack­ ages: Subscribe to PSYCH-EXPTS; send e-mail to MAILBASE@MAILBASE.AC.UK; message = join psych-expts yourFirstname yourLastname Datafiles • For ICPSR Datafiles/Information: Gopher to DATALIB.LIBRARY.UALBERTA.CA 70. • For Social Science Data/Archive Informa­ tion: Telnet to HAR1.HUJI.AC.IL, login as SSDA, choose Online Aleph and then Social Science Data Archive; for Institute for Research in So­ cial Sciences Information: Telnet to info.acs.unc .edu, login as INFO; look in Research selection. • For electronic conference discussion of so­ cial science data: Subscribe to SOS-DATA us­ ing steps listed above with e-mail to LISTSERV @UNCVM1. • For Psycoloquy Article (with responses) proposing archiving and access on the Internet of data gathered in psychology research: Go­ pher to GOPHER.CIC.NET 70; find Psycoloquy under P in alphabetical list under Electronic S e ria ls, a n d fin d ite m s PSY C .92.3-29, PSYC.92.3.55, PSYC.92.3-56, PSYC.92.3-57, the articles by Skoyles, G raham , G elobter and Jennings). ■ (Marketing the library con ’tfrom page 504) a part of the computerized education process. We will hold another Library Media Fair as soon as w e can allocate enough librarian time to organize and staff it. The only trouble is, just as w e ’ve been flooded with users anxious to learn how to dial in and search, w e ’ve had m assive retirem ents and a freeze has been placed on vacant positions. The squeeze be­ tw een increased user needs and decreased personnel is on. W h a t next? So our next step will be to maximize librarian time and effort—w e ’re concentrating on our publications’ program and investing in more sophisticated desktop publishing equipm ent. O ur reasoning is that if w e take the time to produce an eye-catching guide once, it will be used hundreds of times (and will be available even w hen a librarian isn’t). That single media fair made so many users aware of our services that w e ’re still following up with passw ords and answering incoming phone calls nearly a year later. As a means of marketing the library in its most positive light, w e highly recom mend the fair format. ■ CIC.NET STIS.NSF.GOV INFO.ACS.UNC.EDU BARYON.HAWK.PLATTSBURGH.EDU gopher://GOPHER.STOLAF.EDU mailto:MAILBASE@MAILBASE.AC.UK HAR1.HUJI.AC.IL gopher://GOPHER.CIC.NET