I’m short on time this week,and due to an unexpected (but welcome!) houseguest over the long weekend and some other things,I haven’t finished the post that was meant for today.
However,this article in the NYT that was forwarded by a kind reader made me think about current strategies for reaching users. Sometimes simple plans work best,and sometimes we should look to citizen-inspired ideas when thinking about implementing our own solutions.
I leave you with the Biblioburro. Look for my next post within a day or two.
But how do we reach them? What strategies and tactics do we use? Is word of mouth casually brought up in conversation enough or do we need something more? What is that “more”and how do we go about learning it and doing it?
I bet the biblioburro is as green as it gets –runs on biofuels,low-impact emissions,renewable . . .
As for how? Here’s somthing I’ve been mulling. A local historic preservation company’s flagship operation is a hotel/bar/restaraunt that used to be a county poor farm. Much of the interpretive material comes from several area archives. What if they used something on their menus to highlight the different archives. Who can resist the power of microbrews *and* archivists! It’s like evidential crack!
Russell,
I think it needs to be more than word of mouth,and more than a casual link in a conversation. We need to be strategic about how we market ourselves,and we also need to understand where our users are and how to meet their needs. In a way,this isn’t dissimilar to either the library mindset,or a sales/company mindset. What do we have that people want,and how can we demonstrate the features and benefits of using our materials? I don’t know the “best”way to get there,but I think we need to do some assessment of our audiences (both current and desired) to figure out how to proceed.
T- I love your idea of “evidential crack”–and I’d definitely patronize that establishment! I think it’s a good idea for us to examine our collections to see what we have that could benefit others in the way you’ve described above–for example,I recall a story about a company archivist who,upon the hiring of a new CEO,promptly found information in the collection relating to the CEO’s family. (Unfortunately I can’t remember who it was or the name of the archivist.) As a form of outreach,the archivist immediately made an impression on that CEO and probably formed a positive bond between the archives and the head of that company. I think this is a decent example of the bonds that we can attempt to create within the different communities among which we circulate.