Doing Library Card Signup Month Like A Candidate

The checklist for Library Card Sign-up month: Big sign in the lobby (check). Banner at the desks (check). Blurb in the newsletter (check). Tweets to our followers (check).

If the research is correct that with a library ballot measure the librarian is the candidate, we need to start getting the librarians out into the world.

For some practical advice on how to do that within the normal mission and scope of library service delivery, check out the September 2013 "Advocates Corner" column in Library Journal by John Chrastka, EveryLibrary's Exec Dir.

I Don’t Need Two Forms of ID When I’m Standing at Your Door

The checklist for Library Card Sign-up month: Big sign in the lobby (check). Banner at the desks (check). Blurb in the newsletter (check). Tweets to our followers (check). Visiting people who don’t have a library card and signing them up on the spot…. I suspect we are missing our key audience when we follow our traditional inbound service model during Library Card Sign-Up Month. I believe we can be much more effective if we take a page out of political campaigns and meet the public door-to-door. I’d settle for event-based sign-ups at the grocery store, bank, train station, or playground. But door-to-door is extremely effective in transforming a contact into a conversation and that conversation into action. And it is rather easy to fix:

Read the whole column there and let us know what you think....

http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2013/09/opinion/advocates-corner/i-dont-need-two-forms-of-id-when-im-standing-at-your-door-advocates-corner/