Against the Grain Volume 20 | Issue 2 Article 41 April 2008 Issues in Vendor/Library Relations -- Cyrkled Bob Nardini Coutts nfI ormation Services, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/atg Part of the Library and Information Science Commons Recommended Citation Nardini, Bob (2008) "Issues in Vendor/Library Relations -- Cyrkled," Against the Grain: Vol. 20: Iss. 2, Article 41. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7771/2380-176X.2768 This document has been made available through Purdue e-Pubs, a service of the Purdue University Libraries. Please contact [email protected] for additional information. Using Rare Books — Part 2 from page 80 Mill’s On Liberty (1850) — individual rights ably defended Psychology Pavlov’s [Conditioned Reflexes: an In- vestigation of the Physiological Activity of the Cerebral Cortex] (Russian, 1926) — provided a foundation for psychology as an experimental science Religion Luther’s An den Christlichen Adel Deutscher Nation: von des Christlichen Standes Besserung (1520) — Luther used poli- tics to separate religion from politics, and he used religion to promote education, individual judgement, and autonomy. Breasted’s Development of Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt (1912) — using primary sources he translated, Breasted showed that as religion expanded thought contracted Speeches Demosthenes’ Orationes (Greek, 1504; Kinsey, Pomeroy, Martin, and Gebhard’s Travel written by 322 BC) — one of the principal Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953) models for political oratory Olmsted’s Journey to the Seaboard Slave — the second States (1856) — the first of his trips through Milton, Areopagitica: a Speech of Mr. John Sports the South to study slavery and although the Milton for the Liberty of Unlicenc’d Printing, shortest, the most vivid and influential to the Parliament of England (1644) Jahn’s Lehrbuch der von Friedrich Ludwig Jahn unter dem Namen der Turnkunst Wieder- Parkman’s California and Oregon Trail: Sociology weckten Gymnastik… (1814) — the book that Being Sketches of Prairie and Rocky Mountain Dubois, Moeurs, Institutions et Cérémonies created the sport of gymnastics; Jahn sought a Life (1849) — some of the best accounts writ- des Peuples de l’Inde (1899) — one of the full- substitute for military training, which had been ten of American Indians est accounts of the ways of life of any people forbidden in Germany during the Napoleonic recorded in the 18th Century Period Gene Waddell is an architectural histo- Eden’s State of the Poor; or an History Naismith’s Rules for Basket Ball (1892) rian and College Archivist at the College of of the Labouring Classes in England (1797) — another of the few major sports wholly Charleston in Charleston, SC. He is author of — the first major statistical analysis of a social invented by one person was basketball; Charleston Architecture, 1670-1860 (Wyrick/ problem Naismith’s goal was to create a safe indoor Gibbs Smith, 2003) and of a forthcoming book Kinsey, Pomeroy, and Martin’s Sexual sport for winter on the Pantheon. Behavior in the Human Male (1948) — the first Weismuller’s Swimming the American major statistical study of sexuality; marked a Crawl (1930) — training methods of one of We hope you have enjoyed Part 2 of Gene’s turning point in social attitudes and legal posi- the most successful athletes of all time in terms list. You can findPart 1 in the February issue tions on the basis of established facts that could of the number of world records broken and the of ATG, v.20#1, p.70. — KS no longer be denied length of time the records were held Issues in Vendor/Library Relations — Cyrkled Column Editor: Bob Nardini (Group Director, Client Integration and Head Bibliographer, Coutts Information Services) <[email protected]> hank goodness for the airlines. It’s been For me then, flights are when I am able its 1966 single, years since they’ve provided anything to do full justice to the daily New York Times, a “ R e d R u b b e r Teat that doesn’t resemble dry pet food reading project that in the course of a normal, Ball,” a bouncy and on many flights it’s no more possible to non-traveling workday, seems about as daunt- love song — it bring out your laptop and work than it would ing as writing a term paper once did. But when truly was bouncy be on the way to the office on an uptown rush- the learning commons is at 30,000 feet, even — co-written by hour train runnng through Manhattan. So fly- the obituaries published by the Times are within Paul Simon and ing is a good time to read, about the only time reach, which is how I learned about the death, sung in nice harmo- possible, too often it seems. Domestic flights and life, of Thomas Dawes. ny by the Cyrkle. Most today, as much as they are anything else, are Dawes, according to a Times death notice Boomers, once reminded of it, will fight with airborne learning commons, long narrow study late last year, was co-founder of the Cyrkle, a no success as the tune, a neurological virus, spaces with almost everyone engaged with pop group whose “brief career,” as the news- plays again and again in their head for days, some kind of text. paper put it, is best (solely, really) known for continued on page 82 Against the Grain / April 2008 <http://www.against-the-grain.com> 81 Springfield, Massachusetts and Newark, New Really, it should be no surprise that many Vendor Library Relations Jersey, was largely focused on making library academic (and other) librarians have become from page 81 services more accessible, through publicity and skilled marketers. Some of the world’s best other means. The very first chapter of thePub - known and most fiercely protected brand as so many of the one-hit gems of the era will lic Library Hand-book Dana published in 1895 names, after all, are those of American uni- do. The Cyrkle, according to Wikipedia, was had to do not with cataloging or acquisitions or versities. No need, it goes without saying, a Pennsylvania frat band discovered by Brian reference, but with library promotion. “Sup- to name them. Nor are lesser known brands Epstein that had one or two other minor hits, pose the beginning of the library is made; keep in higher education unaware of the power of opened for the Beatles during their 1966 U.S. it before the public,” began Dana, who then marketing. The Chronicle of Higher Educa- summer tour, then disbanded in 1967. went on to outline how to accomplish that. tion, for example, recently cited a marketing What did someone like Dawes, readers In 2007, seven libraries who today are campaign launched by the University of might idly wonder, do with the rest of his life? keeping themselves before the public won Idaho that will cost the university $900,000 The answer, for anyone grappling already with Dana awards for their efforts, which ranged per year. “Red Rubber Ball,” will be clear: Dawes went from Brooklyn Public Library’s “Brooklyn Today it’s hard for vendor reps not to on to write advertising jingles (one of two Reads to Babies” program, which highlighted notice that lots of libraries have gotten pretty members of the Cyrkle to do this, in fact). the benefits in brain development and creativ- good at marketing. Maybe it began during He wrote thirty or forty in all, according to ity when parents read to infants, a campaign the 1980s, when Vartan Gregorian became the Times obituary. And Dawes didn’t merely publicized by brochures in English, Spanish, president of New York Public Library and write jingles. He wrote great jingles, composi- Chinese, Russian, Arabic, and Creole; to, through his fundraising and other efforts, bur- tions and slogans that like the Cyrkle’s music in Toms River, New Jersey, Ocean County nished that institution to the point of glamour. can be recalled with ease, even with the passing Library’s “Hurricane Katrina — Partners in Or, maybe the onset of the Web had more to do of decades. Caring,” which raised over $120,000 to help with it, since out of the blue there was a new For Coca-Cola, Dawes wrote “Coke is restore devastated branches of Mississippi’s space where each library didn’t have a choice It.” For McDonald’s, “You, You’re the One.” Hancock County Library; to the Wyoming but to invent a version of itself for the world Dawes struck twice on behalf of American State Library’s “Wyoming Libraries: Bring- to look at. That effort in online re-invention Airlines, “Something Special in the Air,” and, ing the World to Wyoming,” which featured couldn’t help but spill over into brick-and- “We’re American Airlines, Doing What We billboard ads showing the Eiffel Tower as a mortar space, while a library’s physical re- Do Best.” Thanks to Dawes, a famous soft windmill filling a watering trough for nearby definition likewise, and this has been a great drink is still known as “7UP, the Uncola.” cattle, and which now offers a racy “Mud Flap age for library buildings, somehow probably And his masterpiece, written and submitted Girl” bumper sticker, the long-haired girl in flows into the avatar version of itself presented as a contest entry and even now a jingle al- silhouette familiar from generations of mud on the Web. In some mysterious way, the two most without parallel, not to mention a great flaps in her usual reclining posture — but in presentations probably interact to make each windfall for Alka-Seltzer, was “Plop, Plop, Wyoming, she is reading a book.