Marketing and Programs Group Meeting – Marrickville Library – Thursday, 12th March 2020
Attendees: 45 participants representing libraries from Woollahra, Campbelltown, Canada Bay, Burwood, Central Coast, Shellharbour, SLNSW, Port Macquarie, Canterbury-Bankstown, Lane Cove, Northern Beaches, Camden, Newcastle, Mosman, Sutherland Shire, Parramatta, Fairfield City, Wollongong City, Liverpool City, City of Ryde, Penrith, Randwick City, Georges River, Waverley, Willoughby City. Plus some (<10) participants via Blue Jeans
1. Acknowledgement of Country and Welcome to Marrickville Library by Lysele Assarapin.
2. Introduction to Innovation in Outreach Services Awards (which recognises successful marketing projects across the state) by Philip Edney, NSWPLA Executive Member
Presentation in files.
Extra notes: - NSWPLA noticed entrants to awards seemed to always be Outreach projects, hence name change of awards.
- Main aim is to encourage innovation
- A really good application will need to demonstrate outcomes
- Q: What exactly does ‘innovation’ mean? Can a project that has been done before (either elsewhere, or in same library) qualify? - A: Yes, as long as you can demonstrate how it is new, or delivered a change for your community. - Action: Philip to send ‘applications open’ email not just to library managers, but broader elist, after comment from Melanie that other staff should know.
3. 2019 IIOS award recipients:
Penrith Library – Pop-up Library Outreach - presented by Barjinder Kaur and Soonh Umrani. Presentation in files.
- Program launched at a time when memberships and loans were down and this approach reversed this trend
- Making ‘manning’ the pop-up once or twice a year a kpi for all staff was helpful
- Pop-ups were set up according to where they were going, and replicated some in-library programs (e.g. storytimes, LEGO club etc)
- So successful they are now trialling one pop-up per month
- Action: Barjinder will share their pop-up ‘checklist’ with meeting group (in files)
City of Ryde Libraries – Join up/Join in program – presented by Phil Jones Presentation in files.
- Their re-useable mug was co-financed by council’s sustainability department. Library logo on one side, Sustainability logo on other (probably wouldn’t as many as they did next time around though)
- RE: memberships, Ryde was already starting from a high position so a small increase was a very good result
– this campaign was more about promoting variety of programs/services
- Awareness raised of variety of offerings was hard to measure, but definite increase in memberships/visits/loans
- Q: How did they go about reconciling council’s branding with library’s branding? - A: Used council’s graphic designer, and as long as council’s logo was somewhere on collateral, they were free to do what they wanted
- Ryde is considering cancelling future campaign due to Covid-19, but comment from Newcastle: don’t cancel, make it Join up, Join in ONLINE
Port Macquarie-Hastings – Street Library Build Program – presented by Angie Hazelton-Kelly Presentation in files.
- Had local papers on board for promotion of program, which really helped
- New program born from this one: book swap
Campbelltown Library – LEAP, autism-inclusive program – presented by Melissa Arriola Presentation in files
- Saturdays, first thing, for library tours etc were chosen because quietest period
- Whilst haven’t continued with LEAP program as a whole, have continued with elements (like quiet tent)
- Staff training on patrons with autism was very helpful, and has helped staff to look at existing programming in new ways (flow on effect)
- Feedback from regulars has been positive; they have commented that even if autism-related issues don’t apply to their own family, they feel good about the library trying things like this
4. Public Library Membership Campaign sneek peak, by Cameron and Vanessa from SLNSW
- To be launched in May (Library week) – 4 stage campaign
- Aim to increase public library memberships across state (from 42% to 50%), which will be a handy stat to use when going back to the government to ask for more money for public libraries
- Aim to help those libraries with lower percentages of members, and without the resources to launch sophisticated promotional campaigns etc
- All libraries can get on board with the developed promotional materials though if wanted
- Very much a social media-focussed campaign #MyLibraryGetsMe
- Q: Why is membership so important? Lots of patrons happily use the library without being a member. Also, is this a mixed message on the ‘we are more than just books’ promotion? - A: That is a good point, and we acknowledge library visits are just as important as member stats, but just for this campaign; it is very much about promoting the benefits of being a member, and about asking how many of our visitors can we serve better by signing them up? Jim from Port Macquarie has a good outlook to consider: everyone is a library member (because they are rate-payer etc), they just haven’t come to collect their card yet – can we get them in to do that?
- Q: Will well-known public figures be used in campaign, to help promote to non-library people? - A: Besides State Librarian, John, no.
- Comment: (Newcastle) I think the #MyLibraryGetsMe is a good campaign, and not about the membership but about the personal/individual connection which is what we used to increase our membership recently (6000 new members). The hashtag is also very versatile and ‘me’ centric which is good for new generation of library users.
- Comment: SLNSW is thinking of special artwork for new ‘special edition’ library cards for new members if that would help.
- SLNSW will also add a ‘find your library’ search that links direct to ‘join up’ pages of individual libraries.
5. Programming and marketing at Inner West Council Libraries, Lysele Assarapin and Gladwyn Patiag Presentation in files.
- Lysele has galleries background
- Marrickville’s programs are developed around specific themes and also based on our collections
- We do things like NAIDOC week, National Science Week, Book Week, Seniors Week, also special initiatives like Young Creators Awards and Comic Conversation which is actually pretty big
- We work with big partners like Sydney Writers Festival, Mardi Gras and Sydney Greek Festival
- We have 8 libraries across Inner West
- We develop programs based on demographics; we have used 2016 Census as a basis to develop appropriate programming across our libraries – we look at age, cultural/language diversity, employment/occupations, education and income. This is the evidence we use to develop our programs. Also, last year council did a survey that gauged our audience needs and interests
- Evaluation is important, so we give patrons forms to fill in after each program which we use again to develop/adjust programs
- Recent highlights: Philosophy series at Leichhardt, Comic Conversation at Ashfield (trialled recruiting an external curator for this year and was very successful), Virtual songlines program, Lunar New Year program, Sydney Writers Festival speakers, Partnership with Friends of Balmain Library to host Bruce Beresford
- Youth audience is our main challenge, and so our main aim for the next few years to engage our young people with our collections and programs – recent successful program for young people=slam poetry, and young creators awards (writing & drawing comp)
- Since restructure, in terms of staff, we have 3 program coordinator positions spread throughout our service, a children’s and youth program coordinator, 3 senior program officers, 4 program officers, 1 programs assistant and 1 history programs officer.
- We have monthly team meetings but anyone in our libraries can put forward an idea for a program. The process is to fill out an event template, which will either be approved or rejected by coordinator.
- Eventbrite used for program listing & tickets
- Marrickville’s ‘new’ library acknowledged as big draw card for programs and new memberships etc - 20% of people found out about programs through enewsletter (not sure what age groups read them)
6. General & brief round table discussion
Wollongong Libraries – Pride month programming - People need to know what’s happening in our community around Pride Month so they are working with other areas of council and organisations to produce a consolidated program schedule for Pride Month (just like Seniors Week)
Willoughby City Libraries – Harry Potter escape room (STEAM programming) - Eleni planned and delivered a very successful Harry Potter Book Night program recently which included a STEAM-focussed escape room, so if anyone would like the plans to help run their own, she is happy to share
Marketing& Programs steering committee
- Currently at 2 members (Melanie & Eleni) and need more help
- Alex (Newcastle), Tanya (Wollongong and Melissa (Campbelltown) have put up their hands to join steering committee and the help is very much appreciated. Thanks.
- Next meeting is to be advised (most likely in July)