Monday, February 12, 2007

It's here! It's here!

The new collaborative blog project I alluded to last week is now up and running! I'm hopeful it will be a terrific complement to the marketing content on this blog since the topic is design. Designing Better Libraries addresses methods and strategies for developing meaningful user experiences. The opening post sums it up nicely:

"That's what Designing Better Libraries is all about; adapting new ways of thinking and acting that will promote the development and implementation of ideas, strategies and services that will create a better library experience for the users."
You can also learn more about DBL Philosophy here.

I'll be contributing to this blog with colleagues I have loads of respect for, including Steven Bell, Brian Mathews, John Shank, Jeff Trzeciak, and Michael J. Giarlo. For the next week or so, you can expect introductions from all of us, including descriptions of the topic areas we're going to be focusing on.

What does design have to do with marketing?
I know I'm preaching to the choir when I say that marketing isn't all just making posters and putting on events. There's a lot of strategy and research that goes into developing meaningful services and coherent experiences for patrons. Design, as we're talking about it, is a methodology for addressing patron needs. For my part, I'm going to be discussing creativity and innovation (and I'm pretty sure marketing will come up too!). I'm extremely excited to be involved in this project because it gives me a chance to explore these topics and identify techniques that will help librarians come up with unique, differentiated services that precisely target patrons' needs and wants, which is what marketers are always shooting for. Other DBL authors will delve into topics like instructional design, technology, and multimedia, to name some.

I hope you'll find it useful and that you'll share your own thoughts on the DBL blog. Of course, I'll still be blogging away here on LM and tying in what I learn about creativity and innovation in the marketing context as well. Enjoy!

1 comment:

Nancy Dowd said...

Wow Jill, you never stop!!! Listen we need your help. Over here at the NJ State Library we’re conducting a marketing experiment to see if we can break the record for the most comments posted on a YouTube video. The idea is to have people post their three reasons and then pass the word to five friends. Of course what makes it even better is that it will be a library video that breaks the record! Hope you post and pass the word! Thanks, Nancy

Go to: http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZeQI25n8qPQ