ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries 504 IC&RL News ■ M a y 2001 C o l l e g e & R e s e a r c h L i b r a r i e s weN s Reaching out to students Planning a library fair by Diane d'Almeida In the beginning of the fall 1999 semester at the Massachusetts Institute of Technol­ ogy (MIT), we held a library fair at the Dewey Library (the Management and Social Sciences Library that serves the Sloan School). The academ ic year was about to start and we wanted to reach out to students before they got so caught up in their course work that they would have no free time to learn about the library’s resources. Not only did we want to advertise our pres­ ence, our products, and our services to the student body, but we wanted to lift our somewhat sagging morale as well. In this essay, I will explain how we achieved these goals and managed a very successful outreach to the small but busy community o f local merchants o f Kendall Square, Cambridge. Expectations o f our outreach attempt w ere not only met, but, in fact, surpassed anything any o f us had expected. Planning th e f a ir Preparation for the fair began in July 1999- Our w eekly staff m eetings included 15- minute updates o f our progress. We di­ vided our tasks into several categories: how to market our products (databases, OPAC, print sources, library services); games to guarantee participation o f the student com ­ m unity; p u b lic r e la tio n s ; d e c o ra tio n s ; physical set-up o f the library during the fair; and staff recruitment. Colleagues vol­ unteered to take on the duties o f heading task forces. Libraries are notoriously famous for b e ­ ing short-staffed. Ours was no exception. However, it was summer and the staff was able to work steadily on this project. Our goal was to get people into the library, give them an idea o f what rich materials we had, and have them leave the library with a positive feeling. My idea o f the marketing p ro ject for Dewey Library was not original, but it was new to the MIT community. Staff got on the bandwagon on ce it was clear what we w ere planning. Librarians and n on-profes­ sionals w ere genuinely enthusiastic about boosting our image on the MIT campus, and wanted to have fun doing it. My surprise during this effort was not at the reaction o f the staff, but at the en ­ thusiastic reaction o f our local m erchant com m unity. I did n ot know that there would be so many m erchants to jump at the idea o f contributing goods and services to our fair. They w ere happy to do it and surprised to learn that there was a library around the corner w here they could go to read the new spaper anytime. About the author Diane d'Almeida is Modern Foreign Language and Linguistics bibliographer at Boston University, e-mail: dalmeida@bu.edu bu.edu C SRL N ew s ■ M a y 2001 / 505 I also had not expected the pure joy that showed on the faces of many MBA Sloan School students as they appeared after the fair with the magic stubs— winners o f cou­ pons ranging from $10 to $100 to local food establishments or elsewhere. Devising gam es and raffles To get them into the library, we devised a game/raffle plan that would require their physical presence in Dewey. Food and prizes were the way to go. Lining up raffle prizes turned out to be the most time-consuming feature of the library fair and the most suc­ cessful. I made an initial list of 20-30 estab­ lishments in the vicinity of MIT—from banks, to cinemas, to restaurants, to health clubs. Although merchants were very willing to give, they required time, daily calls, visits, official letters, and faxes. Eventually, promised gifts began to arrive, and I knew we were in busi­ ness. The top prize offered by a local bank was a $100 savings certificate; a healthclub contributed monthly passes; restaurants of­ fered coupons for $5 to $75 coupons; and bookstores gave multiple certificates. Our total number of prizes was more than 100. But the $100 certificate deserved a raffle of its own, so we created a special quiz. Dem onstrations at the fair Once the prizes were guaranteed, we focused on how we could best demonstrate our prod­ ucts and market our services to the Fair par­ ticipants. It is not uncommon for academic patrons to be unaware of the rich databases available to them. New students, in particu­ lar, are not familiar with our full-text sources. MIT attracts a large foreign student popula­ tion. Many of these new students are as­ tounded when they learn that the databases (of which there are well over 100 at MIT) are available for free. We wanted to offer short and informative sessions on particular data­ bases, library catalog, and library services. A tour of the library was also available. We set up Information Stations inside the library, manned by library staff. The most efficient way to guarantee that people visited these information stations was to require that anyone wishing to en ­ ter the raffle must first visit an information station and have his or her voucher signed. The library fair put Dewey on the map—for students and for the local business community. Only then could he/she deposit the vouch­ ers outside in the boxes. Raffle drawings were held every hour, and winners were notified immediately. All vouchers were of equal value. All prizes were not. We had well over 300 people visit our booths from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. that day. The date was ideal— students were back, had al­ ready registered, but had not started any rou­ tine yet. We hung balloons and a banner on the patio to attract as much attention as we could. Staff all wore t-shirts, printed (in red) with our names, Dewey Library, and a logo. The table outside, full of handouts of infor­ mation on our electronic sources and other materials, held the raffle boxes and small giveaways from vendors. We spoke to as many passing people as we could and en­ couraged them to come into the library. The library fair put Dewey on the map— for students and for the local business com­ munity. There were more than 100 happy prizewinners, many of whom learned much about our resources. We felt we were 100% successful in creating an image of the Dewey library as a place for information, a receptive and welcoming staff, and fun. People like contests and they are de­ lighted when they win. The local businesses in Kendall Square, Cambridge, make their living off the students of MIT. They are grate­ ful to the institute, and enjoy the opportu­ nity to give something back to the commu­ nity. By tapping into these groups, we were able to promote our library and do some­ thing fun for our patrons and for ourselves. In closing, I must tell the story of one win­ ner. An international student who had arrived in the United States the previous month, was notified of his prize. When he came in to claim it, and I asked him what he had won, he said, “. . . something to do with hospi­ tals.” I thought hard but could not remember a hospital that had donated a prize. Upon looking it up, it seemed h ed won a $10 cer­ tificate to Au Bon Pain, a local bakery. ■