internet resources

Lindsay Davis, Jen Park, Sabine Dantus, Chris Davidson, Bonnie Cohen Lafazan, and Joan Petit Marketing for the beginner Resources from the ACRL Library Marketing and Outreach Interest Group

re you new to outreach work? Were you section called “Spoilers, Sweetie!” written by Atasked with planning events highlight- volunteer librarians who write the spoilers ing your services, collections, or spaces and for award-winning books. Access: http:// don’t know where to start? Do you need to www.5minlib.com/; https://www.facebook. create promotional materials but have no com/5minlib. background in design? Is there little to no • ACRL Library Marketing and Out- budget? The administrators of ACRL’s Library reach Interest Group (LMOIG). LMOIG is Marketing and Outreach Interest Group have an ACRL interest group charged with provid- put together a beginner’s guide that includes ing a forum for discussing effective marketing groups to join, blogs and websites to read, and sharing information about the value of free and low-cost graphic design tools, col- academic and research libraries, including lections of free images and icons, and other services and events. The interest group cur- online resources that spark inspiration when rently holds an official membership of close you have hit the proverbial creativity wall. to 1,000 and a lively Facebook page of more than 3,400 members. The Facebook group Ideas and inspiration serves as the primary place for discussions • 5 Minute Librarian. The 5 Minute between academic librarians and library staff, Librarian blog is perfect for librarians who though the group is also open to librarians need timely marketing inspiration on the fly. and library staff from other library types. From ready-to-go book displays, podcasts to follow, or top ways to advertise your library, 5 Minute Librarian has advice on everything Lindsay Davis is instruction and outreach librarian at from social media, marketing, technology, the University of California-Merced, email: ldavis23@ ucmerced.edu, Jen Park is assistant librarian for access and book displays. There is also a special and outreach services at Mount Saint Mary College, email: [email protected], Sabine Dantus is outreach librarian at Lynn University, email: [email protected], Chris Davidson is campus and community engagement librarian at Northwestern University, email: c-davidson@ northwestern.edu, Bonnie Cohen Lafazan is director of Woodbridge Campus Library at Berkeley College, email: [email protected], and Joan Petit, is communications and outreach librarian at Portland State University, email: [email protected]

© 2017 Lindsay Davis, Jen Park, Sabine Dantus, Chris Davidson, Bonnie Cohen Lafazan, and Joan Petit

C&RL News December 2017 612 Librarians share experiences, ideas, suc- elevate the critical role they play in the digi- cesses and failures, and also ask questions tal age. Materials include branded print and like, “What is your experience with liaising digital materials, from posters and postcards with nonacademic departments on campus?” to bookmarks, as well as tips for adapting “What button maker should I buy, and how the campaign to individual libraries. Ac- do I convince my administration to pay for it?” cess: http://www.ala.org/advocacy/libraries and “What are you doing for Banned Books -transform-campaign; http://www. Week?” Access: www.ala.org/acrl/aboutacrl ilovelibraries.org/librariestransform/. /directoryofleadership/interestgroups • Programming Librarian. Program- /acr-iglmo; https://www.facebook.com ming Librarian, run by the ALA Public Pro- /groups/acrl.lmao/. grams Office, serves as a place to inspire • ACRL University Libraries Section other librarians interested in developing (ULS) Academic Outreach Committee programming through resources, ideas, (AOC). AOC is a ULS committee charged with and professional development opportuni- developing and maintaining a community of ties. The website offers detailed program practice to share information and foster best models browsable by the type of library, practices in campus outreach for academic topic, and projected budget. Blog posts of- libraries. The committee hosts online round- fer further experiences, tools, and tips. The table discussions throughout the year around Programming Librarian Facebook group specific topics, such as Planning and Manag- offers librarians more dynamic interactions ing the Outreach Calendar for the Year, Col- with each other, including a space to quickly laborating with Campus Partners on Outreach share their experiences or ask questions. Activities, and Outreach to International Access: http://www.programminglibrarian. Students. The roundtables are great places org/; https://www.facebook.com/groups to share experiences and learn from others /ProgrammingLibrarianInterestGroup/. in a small group setting. Previous discussions • WebJunction. WebJunction, a pro- are hosted on the committee’s YouTube gram of OCLC Research, helps librarians and page. Access: www.ala.org/acrl/uls/acr-ulsao; library staff from all types of libraries learn https://www.youtube.com/channel from peers through free webinars, which /UCjxSyisSf1WgdclboIzfM7Q. are recorded and archived; online classes • ALA LLAMA Marketing and Com- and other training opportunities; as well as munications Community of Practice. featuring news and documents. Topic areas Formerly the LLAMA Public Relations and include marketing, outreach, programming, Marketing Section, this group pulls together advocacy, and more. Access: http://www. people in marketing and communications webjunction.org/. from public, special, and academic libraries. Its committees run the John Cotton Dana Graphic design inspiration and tools Library Public Relations Award and the PR • Ad/Lib. Ad/Lib shares examples of Xchange, which showcase the best public good design and advertising work from relations work done in libraries. The Flickr libraries of all types. Featuring websites, stream for the PR Xchange is a great place to see examples of excellent library marketing materials. Access: http://www.ala.org/llama /communities/marketing; https://www.flickr. com/photos/prxchange-awards/. • Libraries Transform. The Libraries Transform campaign is designed to increase the awareness of the value, impact, and services of libraries and librarians and to

December 2017 613 C&RL News marketing campaigns, logos, branding, sig- (Instructional Materials, Logos, Slideshow nage, flyers, etc., Ad/Lib shares both reader- Templates, etc.) All work published on Librar- submitted designs and information found ian Design Share is covered on a Creative online. Readers can browse content by format Commons Attribution-NonCommerical Share- (print, digital, multimedia, etc.), library type Alike 3.0 Unported license. Access: https:// (public, academic, and special), and post type librariandesignshare.org/. (branding, wayfinding, web redesign, etc.). • Piktochart. Piktochart is the leading Access: http://adlib.info/. online design tool to create promotional • Adobe Spark. Adobe Spark, which materials that best showcase information by includes Spark Post, Page, and Video, is an way of infographics. While there is no cost online graphic design tool and app that can to get started, paying a monthly fee allows help those with little-to-no design experi- users to create personalized color schemes, ence create professional-looking content for upload photos, and access hundreds of tem- social media or websites. Spark Post helps plates. While it does take some time to grasp users design posts, thumbnails, advertise- the settings, Piktochart offers tutorials, and ments, and covers for social media. Spark the Piktochart team is also available to help. Page allows users to create magazine-style Access: www.piktochart.com. webpages. Spark Video allows users to re- • Smore. Smore is an online design tool cord narration, add text, upload photos, or to easily create web-based flyers and newslet- search through Creative Commons-licensed ters that can be shared via email group lists, photos and icons to add visual elements to a link, or directly to social media, including videos. Although there is no cost to use the Facebook and Twitter. Users also have ac- basic Adobe Spark, for a small monthly fee, cess to analytics that can help measure the users can replace the Adobe Spark logo with reach of each flyer or newsletter. With the their library logo and select branded colors, free version of Smore, users can create up fonts, themes, and templates. Access: http:// to three newsletters using basic templates. spark.adobe.com. There are a variety of subscriptions (personal, • Canva. Canva is an online graphic de- business, corporate, and educator) that can sign tool that allows users to create Facebook be purchased for a small monthly or annual posts, blogs, posters, flyers, and all kind of fee. The fee-based accounts allow users to the promotional material they may need to create an unlimited number of flyers/newslet- design. Users can browse through free and ters using customizable backgrounds. Access: low-cost pre-created templates or create de- https://www.smore.com. signs from scratch. While some icons, images, and templates do have a small fee, users may Icons and images also upload their own images. Canva’s free • CC Search. CC Search provides users tutorials are a great way for people with no with the ability to search for content with background in design to learn how to make Creative Commons licenses from a variety appealing materials step by step. Nonprofits of databases offered by independent orga- can apply for a free subscription to more nizations, including Wikimedia Commons, tools, including custom fonts and branding SoundCloud, Pixabay, Google Images, etc. tools. Access: www.canva.com. Users can also limit results to content that • Librarian Design Share. Librarian can be used for commercial purposes and/ Design Share features examples of reader or modified, adapted, or built upon. As submitted design work, including flyers, Creative Commons does not have control displays, handouts, websites, and more, over search results, users should double- from libraries of all types. Readers can check to see that the content is under a browse by design software (Adobe InDesign, CC license by following the links. The new GIMP, Google Slides, etc.) or by design type Beta CC Search, with new search filters and

C&RL News December 2017 614 one-click attribution, allows users to search to the Pexels community. Access: https:// across a variety of vetted open-sourced www.pexels.com/. content through one single interface. • Pixabay. Pixabay features more than Access: https://search.creativecommons. 1.1 million photos, vector graphics, illus- org/; Beta Version Access: https://ccsearch. trations, and videos that can be used for creativecommons.org/. commercial and noncommercial purposes. • Flaticon. Flaticon features more than All content is licensed under Creative Com- 573,000 free vector icons that can be used for mons. Users can search by media type, personal and commercial purposes. Premium orientation, pixel size, color, and categories subscribers who pay a small monthly fee ranging from animals, architecture, religion, also have access to premium icons and don’t music, beauty/fashion, and people. Images need to provide attribution. Users who aren’t can be downloaded in a variety of sizes, premium subscribers must provide credit and each image also provides users with sug- to the icon designer. Users can search and gestions for similar images. Access: https:// download individual icons or icon packs that pixabay.com/. are organized by category (finance, technol- • Unsplash. Unsplash is a searchable ogy, etc.). Icons are available in PNG, SVG, library of free high-resolution digital pho- EPS, PSD, and BASE 64 formats. Flaticon’s @ tographs that can be downloaded and used font-face Generator allows users to convert for any purpose, both commercial and icons to webfonts. Flaticon also has an Adobe noncommercial. In addition to searching extension and Mac OS X app. Access: https:// for images, users can also browse the most www.flaticon.com/. popular collections by topic or the results • IconArchive. IconArchive has a li- of trending searches. Unsplash also has a brary of more than 500,000 icons organized Chrome extension, so each new tab pro- in 45 different categories. Users can search vides a new photograph, which can also or browse for individual icons or icons sets be downloaded. Users who create accounts that can be sorted by alphabet, popularity, can make private or public collections and number of icons, resolution (the highest receive announcements, recommended resolution, 1024px, is listed first), color, photos, resources, tips, etc. Access: https:// size, or artist. Icons can be downloaded in a unsplash.com/. variety of sizes and formats. The license and attribution information is also available for Other resources each icon and icon set. Access: http://www. • ACRL Library Marketing and Out- iconarchive.com/. reach Libguide. The ACRL Library Mar- • Pexels. Pexels is a library of 40,000 keting and Outreach LibGuide, a project free high-quality stock photos, which of the Library Marketing and Outreach can be used for both personal and com- Interest Group, is a growing resource that mercial purposes. All photos are covered includes the resources listed above and under the Creative Commons Zero license, more. The guide features groups to join; and attribution is not required. Users can conferences to attend; books, blogs and search for images or can also browse by websites to read; sample marketing plans; color, popular photos, popular searches, resources for social media; and more tools photographers, and categories (summer, for graphic design work and collections abstract, city, fashion, etc.) Every image of images and icons. A go-to resource for can be downloaded in a variety of sizes, anyone involved with library marketing and each photo also has suggestions for and outreach, be sure to bookmark the similar images. Those who sign up for guide and check in frequently for updated accounts receive 40 additional photos to content. Access: https://acrl.libguides.com download and can upload their own photos /marketingresources.

December 2017 615 C&RL News