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November 01, 2011
Corey's Charleston Conf. Presentations
I have one more to add - but here are two of my presentations for the Charleston Conference:
Where is the Hospitality in Your Library?
In the library and information fields, we spend countless hours focusing on making our world a more self-service environment. While many students and faculty much prefer to work independently and easily find resources on their own, we have placed our emphasis on creating a self-service environment that removes the “middle man” from the information equation. And with the move that many have made away from conventional reference desks and reference service, we can (at times) look more like self-check express lanes at the grocery stores than like the libraries that we used to be. And while our patrons most certainly enjoy accessing resources in an unmediated fashion, there are many instances (especially with more difficult research projects) where they do need assistance with finding print and electronic resources. This presentation takes a brief look at how we have used the methods from the hospitality industry at the Kresge Business Administration Library (University of Michigan) to ensure that we are not only meeting the information needs of our patrons, but also being available to assist them when it is needed. In this presentation, we will discuss the role of public service in the library and how the lessons on the hospitality industry can improve our interaction with the patrons. We hope that attendees will be able to take away some tangible hospitality methods that have worked, as well as those that did not work. In focusing on hospitality, it allows us to think in a whole new fashion for the services that we provide.
Using Your Library’s Annual Report to Market Library Services
In this session, I will discuss how the annual report can be an important element in a library’s marketing program rather than a chore that needs to be accomplished each year. While not every library produces an annual report, the data that goes into a report is often collected for a variety of functions and purposes already (ARL Stats, budget requests, organizational reports, etc.). By creating even a modest annual report, the library provides another mechanism to share its accomplishments and connect with both its user base and its governing body. It also helps demonstrate ROI (Return on Investment) for the library to its governing bodies (be they academic institutions, communities, corporations, etc.) This presentation will provide attendees with the thinking behind the Kresge Business Administration Library’s (University of Michigan) Annual Reports (2007-2011) and how we have adapted these documents over the last five years to match the interests of the students, faculty, staff and administration of the Ross School of Business. From this session, attendees will be presented with a variety of options for annual reports that they might be able to emulate at their institution.
Posted by cseeman at November 1, 2011 10:15 AM