I like it, and I especially like it for its consistency. See more at the Stadsbiblioteket Goteborg issuu profile.

Grant Kaiser, manager of marketing for the CPL sent some details:

Our “Everything You’re Into” campaign grew out of our extensive new branding project, which looked at all our interactions with customers and citizens, not just at the logo.
 
We tested dozens of potential slogans we developed in house with focus groups (managed by a research firm). “Everything You’re Into” was the clear winner.  People felt it was accurate, believable, approachable, and positive,  They also described it as a curious blend of inspiring and (positively) challenging – it made them think about themselves and what they liked, and then think about how the Library might help them.

All of the creative was done in-house, with the exception of the actual photography.

Once it’s over, we’ll do it again to see where the numbers moved.  We test things such as top-of-mind awareness – essentially asking if you considered using the Library recently when you needed information, wanted something to read, watch, or listen to, etc.  We also test recall of the actual campaign.

A few people asked me if they could use the image and inquired about the license. Finally I’ve gotten around to putting a license on it. Note that while attribution is included in the license, please consider it optional. By the way, why isn’t there a “no attribution” option?

Here’s a .zip with the following file formats: JPG, PNG, Illustrator: CFL Library Symbol.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

*It is interesting that ALA calls it the national symbol. I guess they can’t declare it the universal symbol, but I’ve seen it used all over the place.

This is an example of what I mean when I say that libraries need to consider all of their touchpoints when facilitating a good user experience. Way to be thorough, AADL!

I contacted the guy who made the ad, Jeremy Wheeler, and he gave me permission to show you some more stuff he made for the AADL here.

My worry was put to rest. Picking up the pace, the video does a fantastic job describing the library by highlighting what it does and what people can do there. There’s no verbal mention of the collection or even specific library services. The video aims higher.

“In early 1971, Hart wrote to dozens of actors, authors, artists, musicians, playwrights, librarians, and politicians of the day. She asked them to write a letter to the children of Troy about the importance of libraries, and their memories of reading and of books.”

See more of the 97 responses at the Troy Public Library website.

[via Letters of Note]

The Queen Anne location of Top Pot Doughnuts is just a stones throw away from the branch of Seattle Public Library and is decorated with a bunch of heavy tomes on wood shelves.

I’m not sure if the SPL has anything to do with this nice offer. Regardless, it is nice for library cards to have additional value around the community.

I presented my Multnomah Public Library card to see what would happen. It worked! $1 off. No questions asked, just a pleasant chat about Portland and how many people flash their library card for the discount. The answer: a lot.

At the DCPL we’re evaluating ways to automatically offer patrons email accounts and online storage space when they register for a card. And thinking about if the idea even makes sense.

Here’s what Dropbox sends when someone who signed up for the service hasn’t recently used it. These go out only occasionally (from what I understand, I don’t think I’ve ever not used it since signing up!) so it isn’t overbearing or terribly spammy. Plus? It is short, easy to read and rather engaging.

Are any libraries sending out email prompts like this when someone hasn’t used their library card?

I ♥ this project!

Check out the I ♥ librarians photostream on flickr because there are some great shots.

thanks, mary!

I ♥ this project!

Check out the I ♥ librarians photostream on flickr because there are some great shots.

thanks, mary!

[1, 2]

There’s some interesting data hiding inside of our Integrated Library Systems! Here are four days worth of search terms, about 17,000, that were entered into DCPL’s OPAC earlier in the month.

I’m convinced that there’s more useful data inside of ILSs than generally gets used, and that there are more appealing way to use it than bar graphs. I’m not even close to being an expert about data visualization, but my little video above tells more of a story than a number in a spreadsheet. I used Wordle, ScreenFlow and some zooming tricks to make it so it wasn’t difficult but having the ILS spit out data an and automating the process would be great.

And of course, having to sit here and be passive while watching this is a drag. It would be great to be able to interact with this data and do stuff like compare it to items checked out or where the searches came from. We’ll see what comes of this experimentation.

Here’s the first video I made today which presents pretty much the same data in a slightly different way. I don’t like it quite as much, but I should include it to prove to you that I know about more colors than my beloved grey.

The most interesting stuff going on with circulation data exposure I’ve seen recently is from Dave Pattern who just helped the University of Huddersfield release 13 (!) years of circulation data under a CC0 (again !) protocol. That would make one heck of a word cloud. He spoke about it during the last Talk with Talis that I have yet to listen to but will soon.

Just so I’m not accused of constantly bashing library product vendors, I’ll tell you straightaway that despite the fact that “2.0″ appears 17 times on the informational page, the actual interface looks much, *much* nicer. I haven’t used the product yet but from the demo it looks like the default interface is just one search box.

There’s a nifty slider for limiting the date range of search results. The citation tool looks really easy to use with a one click copy to clipboard feature. Adding articles to a folder to save them takes one click. Deleting them is as simple as X-ing them out. These things make me happy.

It’s a bit strange to be praising a company for doing the things that should have been standard all along, but I’ll highlight the effort regardless. I haven’t actually used it yet, but EBSCOhost® 2.0 seems to have addressed some usability issues. This is good. Now they’re free to facilitate interaction and make it social. When I get to actually use the interface I’ll report any additional thoughts.

I’m glad Kathleen commented on the post. This is a *good* example of a library vendor being responsive to the conversations that are taking place.

…

Ok, one more little gripe, not really related to their redesign. Just me being a logo nerd. Why is the “host” in EBSCOhost® in italics when it is text, but not when it is in their logo?

Just so I’m not accused of constantly bashing library product vendors, I’ll tell you straightaway that despite the fact that “2.0″ appears 17 times on the informational page, the actual interface looks much, *much* nicer. I haven’t used the product yet but from the demo it looks like the default interface is just one search box.

There’s a nifty slider for limiting the date range of search results. The citation tool looks really easy to use with a one click copy to clipboard feature. Adding articles to a folder to save them takes one click. Deleting them is as simple as X-ing them out. These things make me happy.

It’s a bit strange to be praising a company for doing the things that should have been standard all along, but I’ll highlight the effort regardless. I haven’t actually used it yet, but EBSCOhost® 2.0 seems to have addressed some usability issues. This is good. Now they’re free to facilitate interaction and make it social. When I get to actually use the interface I’ll report any additional thoughts.

I’m glad Kathleen commented on the post. This is a *good* example of a library vendor being responsive to the conversations that are taking place.

…

Ok, one more little gripe, not really related to their redesign. Just me being a logo nerd. Why is the “host” in EBSCOhost® in italics when it is text, but not when it is in their logo?

Anyway, I really like this WCCLS Photo Content. What a great way to let WCCLS customers shine. They’d get an entry from me, but:

“Officers, employees and representatives of WCCLS, the fourteen WCCLS member libraries and their immediate families, employees of any sponsor and their immediate families are ineligible to participate“

and that makes sense. I like that that this type of interaction and relationship development is coming from the library system level. Not only does it make their website more interesting, it is good leadership from which member libraries can learn.