Get your creativity on!

I had a blast last week getting my creativity on at NEASIST's program on guerilla innovation in Providence, RI. My gig was to talk about the theoretical/conceptual aspects of creativity, including techniques for enhancing one's innate creativity and the need to adopt creativity as a core professional competency. I had so much fun because NEASIST members are awesome, my fellow co-presenters were terrific, and because this topic (creativity) is very near and dear to me these days. Why, you ask (and even if you didn't)? Creativity is at the heart of every new service or 'a ha' moment in libraries. Ideas begin with creative thought. If we're not thinking creatively all the time, we're missing opportunities and letting problems hang around. Creativity, or ideation, are also accepted components of the marketing process, particularly in new product development. With all of the promotional clutter and competing services we face, unique, compelling ideas keep us competitive. Creativity, unfortunately, doesn't just magically happen. It takes an organizational effort and conscious practice to foster ideas and let the good ones see the light of day. It also takes a strong stomach because creativity is inherently risky as it usually means disrupting the status quo.

So, my talk had a lot of personal and professional significance for me and it allowed me to explore another marketing avenue. You're welcome to view the PowerPoint presentation here:

Off the Wall But On the Mark: Using Creativity to Make Libraries Better

Since I try not to load my PowerPoints down with text, you probably have no clue what these slides mean, which is why I'm also going to make my script available. Important Note: I use my so-called-script so that I don't forget the major points I want to make but I don't read from it! So, what you'll read is hardly a verbatim account, but it should give you a sense of how the talk went. I don't claim to be the best speaker ever, but I figured if I didn't mention this fact, you'd all be a tad horrified by what you read. :-)

NEASIST Script (PDF)

Jessamyn posted a brief account of the program on her blog, and I'll be recounting the major themes from all speakers on the Designing Better Libraries (DBL) blog. I'll also describe how to run a successful brainstorming session on DBL.

Best of luck with all of your creative endeavors!

Update: Here's an attendee's notes on the session.

Update #2: I posted my notes from the talk on DBL. I'll also feature creativity practices on DBL to help you generate lots of ideas!

Using library books as direct marketing vehicles - huh?!

This article from the UK's Guardian entitled, "Libraries to be 'new channel' for direct marketing" describes how some libraries have agreed to allow advertisements to be placed next to the due date slips in the books they circulate. To clarify, these ads don't come from the libraries themselves, but from private businesses. Here's what a director at the direct marketing company had to say about this tactic:

'"The inserts are put in the book at the first page as you're handed the book to check it out," he explained. "They're going to be inserted right next to the panel with the return date on it, which means that everyone will look at them at least once."

"We're looking at somewhere between 500,000 and 300,000 a month at the moment," he said, adding that if 300,000 slots were sold a month the participating libraries could hope to see income of around £10,000."

There are hopes to take this idea nationwide, though not everyone is happy with it, as noted in the article.

I'm not a fan of this approach at all, and I'm a marketing enthusiast! The proponents suggest that this kind of advertising promises big revenues, which may be true, but at what cost? One of our most substantial assets, in my opinion, is our brand - a brand that is based on more than books. Our brand also represents trustworthiness and unbiased information services, which these external ads undermine. No matter how much we need additional funds, we should never relinquish our competitive advantages for short-term gains, particularly when doing so could damage those advantages in the long-term.

This direct marketing approach hasn't reached the U.S. yet, but it's not a stretch to say that it could do so in the future. We've already had similar debates over corporate sponsorships and 3rd party entities like coffee shops occupying our buildings. But this crosses a line, in my opinion. I'm interested to know how this might strike you UK readers out there.

Twitter time?

Marketing Profs set the stage for a debate over the marketing merits of microblogging, available in podcast form: MarketingProfs Podcast: Is Twitter a Valuable Tool, or Waste of Time?

Disclaimer: I haven't listened to the podcasts yet, but will try to later today and add any 2 cents I may have. However, I would argue that we have a responsibility to seriously play with all of these Web 2.0 tools, whether or not we choose to implement them for library marketing purposes.

Making the unfun fun: A marketing lesson

This news from Florida Radiology Imaging should give any librarian a boost of inspiration. The creative people at FRI held a brainstorming session in which they devised a way to persuade women to get those pesky but important mammograms done. Their solution? Throw a party! FRI now offers Midnight Mammogram & Manicure sessions where women can invite up to 13 of their friends for an evening of wine, food, pampering, and mammogramming. According to a local news article,

"The idea came about as employees at Florida Radiology Imaging brainstormed for ways to celebrate Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October.

"You have heard of women going to Botox parties. Well, we decided this is way more important than that," said Melody Huffman, marketing director for the radiology group. "I have friends myself, moms who work and are so involved with school -- the last thing they do is take care of themselves. But you can always get a girlfriend to go to dinner. So we're trying to make it easy and fun to come out and take care of your health."'

The service, scheduled to run through October, is now booked through November, and then who knows? Their event site even features e-mail invitations, easily allowing women to spread the word.

Ok, librarians. We have our challenge! If a medical facility can make mammograms fun and actually motivate people to want to have them done, then making libraries fun and rewarding to use should be a snap, right? This is another EXCELLENT example of Triumphs in Marketing. Notice that this had little or nothing to do with promotion, and everything to do with rethinking services so that they appeal to women's needs and preferences. Also notice that this program is the result of a brainstorming session. Brainstorming is not fluff - it can have real and significant consequences and is a technique we should make more good use of. Kudos, FRI.

Bringing in non-users: A report from WLA

As you may remember, I recently got back from a trip to Green Bay, WI to speak at the Wisconsin Library Association Conference. It was awesome to be back in the Midwest, and in true Midwesterner form, everyone was extremely gracious and welcoming to me - thanks, WLA!

I thought you might like to see the PowerPoint presentation I gave in my session called, "Taking the 'Non' Out of Non-User: Increase Your Library's Reach with Creative Marketing Strategies."

I'm sure some of this will make no sense out of context, but you can always drop me a note if you have questions. I would like to make a couple of points based on some of the questions from the attendees (which I'm quoting liberally here):

Q: What if you have no money to draw in non-users?
A: None of the ideas I talked about in the presentation involve a lot of money unless you're thinking about designing new services for completely new patron bases (doing that can take a lot of staff time and resources). The key things I can advise people is to talk to as many people as you possibly can all the time by viewing all of your contacts as means of learning something new, and make the most of the contacts you do have. For example, you could form partnerships with other public or private entities who can help offset costs. There tends to be a lot of goodwill out there for libraries - use it!

It's all about building relationships, and that doesn't always involve money. If you're very concerned about cost, branch out slowly. Start looking for patron needs that are related to needs you're currently filling, and then fill those needs in a slightly different way by only modifying current offerings rather than overhauling them.

Q: What's the 'big idea' for libraries?
A: I talked a bit about how important it is to approach potential new users with a sense of excitement and enthusiasm for what you represent (your library's 'big idea'). It may sound cliche but it's absolutely true: If you don't care about what you're doing, no one else will. Someone then asked me what I thought the 'big idea' for libraries is. I then proceeded, in a very bad-marketing-like way, to ramble on about libraries as creativity labs, to which my colleague responded, "I was hoping for a slogan!". I told him I had nothin'. After thinking about it for a while, I did come up with some possibilities:

• Your ideas. Your library.
• Build ideas @ Your library
• Creativity counts @ Your library
• Your library: Where good ideas grow
• Try something new. Visit your library. [Especially good for non-users, eh?]
  
• Try-on-for-size; Realize; Harmonize; Patronize your library.
• Libraries are built with ideas. Find yours here.

Ok, so these are just some starting points, but don't you hate it when you think of things long after the situation where they'd be useful has passed?! I guess what I'm saying is that I think libraries' big idea is ideas. Unfortunately, nobody in the group had other thoughts on what our 'big idea' is. So, I ask you, daring readers: What IS the big idea and do you have a slogan to add?

Some changes on LM

Here are some changes on the LM blog I thought you might like to know about:

1. Good Marketing Reads - This widget contains some interesting books from my newly-created LibraryThing account. To be honest, I can't claim to have read all of them YET. I ranked the ones I've finished reading and the others are on deck. Lately, most of my reading has been on creativity in preparation for at talk I'm giving in November, so expect to see some titles that will help you tinker with your thinker (wow, the lack of sleep last night must be catching up with me...).

2. Drop Jill a Note - This Meebo widget will allow you to get in touch with me and/or leave me a message (if you leave me a message and want me to get back to you, please include some contact info). This widget replaces my previous one to the Library Marketing Exchange Chat Room. I'll probably still use the chat room in the future, but I found that a number of people would pop into the room, ask a question, and find no one there. That's not very nice so I thought this was better. So far, it's been working out well in that I've received some questions and comments.

Happy reading and thanks as always for dropping by!

Wild Wyoming libraries

I was Meebo-ed by an anonymous tipper who asked if I had heard about the Wyoming Libraries Campaign - thanks anon.! I wrote about it last year, but was glad for the reminder to review their new campaign materials. I think the campaign is pretty funny and relevant for the patron base. I also really like the slogan: "bringing the world to Wyoming." Nancy Dowd has some thoughts on the campaign too.

Cultural institutions tackle memory loss

Good morning, campers! It's the wee hours of the morning (at least for me). I'm at RIC ready to fly to Green Bay, WI to give a talk on drawing in new users for the Wisconsin Library Association - how fun! Ever on the lookout for great marketing inspiration, I had to whip up this post after reading a great story in USA Today. An article called, "Alzheimer's program is one from the art" describes how Manhattan's Museum of Modern Art offers special programming to persons with dementia and their caregivers. The program is called Meet Me at MoMA. According to the article, the specially-designed tours have been shown to aid recall and open people up who might otherwise be too nervous to express themselves.

Not only is this program inspirational, it's brilliant marketing. Great marketing serves important needs. In this case, museums are addressing a significant health issue and nurturing people's well-being, while providing caregivers with a well-deserved respite. Wow! This example is sure to be featured in my talk as a creative example of how we librarians could segment our market and fill unmet needs, even in our overcrowded marketplace. What a wonderful way to draw in non-users and benefit the community at the same time.

I hope to blog a bit from the conference and share any marketing-related goodies with you.

Persuasion through education

The "Small Biz" section of BusinessWeek offers an article called, "Education-Based Marketing Sells" and it is definitely worth a read. In my reference desk experiences, I've often witnessed how teaching patrons about a technique or tool they didn't know they were missing can endear them to the library. It's during those so-called teachable moments that librarians can prove to patrons that they have something to offer that's relevant to their specific personal needs. Education is powerful marketing stuff, as the BusinessWeek article author, Christine Comaford-Lynch describes. She says,

"Sales is about building rapport, not breaking it. When you sell or pitch, you're often breaking rapport because the prospect may be skeptical—no one wants to be "sold." When you educate, you are building rapport. Your credibility is increased significantly when you begin meetings with data that is of value to the prospect. Launch all your meetings by teaching your prospect something or by offering data that establishes that you've done your homework." [Emphasis mine.]

[Ok, so this article is laden with overly-businessy terms. Here's a translation that should help:

• Sales = Service
• Sell / Pitch = Promote
• Prospect = Patron/Customer/User/Client/Whatever Term is Popular These Days
• Meetings = Meetings or Classes or Service Transacations
  
• Data = Information]
  

These are great points that go along with another marketing principle that I strongly believe in: Never underestimate your patrons! I never approach service encounters assuming that patrons are unmotivated to learn something new or potentially challenging because if I do so, they'll easily pick up on my low expectations and become disengaged. If, however, I begin every interaction as a teachable moment, I demonstrate my expectation that they should be actively involved and also that I have confidence they can learn unfamiliar material. Not everyone will be enthusiastic about getting a lesson when they ask a seemingly-straightforward question, but I can always adjust my strategy after testing their reactions.

In fact, most people appreciate it when I point out a helpful advanced search tip or other extra tidbit of information. I suspect that some of this desire for educational opportunities relates to the trend that TrendWatching calls Status Skills. TrendWatching defines Status Skills as:

"In economies that increasingly depend on (and thus value) creative thinking and acting, well-known status symbols tied to owning and consuming goods and services will find worthy competition from 'STATUS SKILLS': those skills that consumers are mastering to make the most of those same goods and services, bringing them status by being good at something, and the story telling that comes with it."

In short, education is empowering. By empowering our patrons through education, we gain their trust, respect, and repeat use. The question, then, that librarian-marketers should keep in mind as we interact with patrons in classes, presentations, meetings, and on the desk is: What can we teach patrons in this moment that will give them an edge in their projects? In doing so, we give ourselves an edge over the competition too.

Need some inspiration?

If your creativity needs a jump start, take a look at Springwise.com, billed as " required brain food for entrepreneurial minds." Springwise, a sister site of TrendWatching, enlists springspotters who scour the worldwide business landscape to unearth the neatest of the neat business-to-consumer (B2C) endeavors. Here's more from the site:

"Springwise scans the globe for the most promising business ventures, ideas and concepts ready for regional or international adaptation, expansion, partnering, investments or cooperation. Ferociously tracking more than 400 global offline and online business resources, as well as taking to the streets of world cities, digital cameras at hand...So whether you’re a budding entrepreneur, head of a start-up, management consultant, marketing manager, business development director, trend watcher, or anyone else interested in creating or expanding companies, Springwise will instantly inspire you by getting the world’s most promising young ventures right in front of you."

They also offer a free weekly newsletter so you can easily keep up with all of the innovative ideas being put into practice. For librarian-marketers, you can scan their idea database by topics like Education, Non-profit/Social cause, and Marketing & Advertising.

This is quickly becoming my favorite Web site because I always feel recharged after seeing all of the inspiring ways in which businesses are serving customer needs. For example, the latest newsletter contains an article about a moving company that helps senior citizens relocate with a suite of specialized service options. It's a fascinating example of how one could target this booming demographic by adding special touches to existing services.

User-generated libraries

IG TrendCentral reported on a new social networking/media sharing site called Uber.com. Here's what TrendCentral had to say about the online community:

"The sleekly designed, user-friendly site offers innovative functions and features currently unrivaled by other popular social networking sites. Not only can users discover, publish, collect, store, and share all forms of content (e.g. art, photos, videos, blogs, and bookmarks) all in one place, but the site also provides them with capabilities to consolidate, manage and store profiles, pages and media from YouTube, Flickr, MySpace, and Facebook all in one place. In other words, Uber is a virtual library where users can store their digital footprints.

Inspired by community members’ ideas and fueled by their desire to create, express and share, Uber’s unique Visual Index is organically generated through the compilation of user-generated pages. As such, the platform is quickly evolving into a next-generation media publishing company that, by fostering creative collaboration, allows users to emerge as stars."

I've played around on this site a little bit. You can log in with your Facebook account. It's really neat to see people experimenting with photography and other media, and to see the collections people are putting together. I'd love to see libraries allow patrons to do something similar on library sites with library materials. For example, libraries provide the resources and information for patrons to produce their own media, and then provide a forum like Uber.com so that they can share their collections with others in a library-hosted platform. The idea appeals to me because it's a great way to demonstrate how information resources are brought to life, and to showcase patron's creative efforts at the same time. (Not a bad marketing strategy either...).

Marketing: It's more familiar than you think

Not to toot my own horn, but the kind people at the Readex Report featured an article I wrote for its Fall 2007 newsletter on the similarities between marketing and teaching called, "Worlds Apart? The Relationship Between Teaching and Marketing and What It Means to Academic Librarians." The point of the piece is to demonstrate that librarians are conducting activities that resemble marketing practices in their instructional roles, at that these commonalities ought to encourage librarians to embrace marketing as a familiar friend. This piece expands on a blog post I wrote with the same theme. I hope the article will help to win over reluctant colleagues who may not understand how marketing works in a non-profit context. I welcome your thoughts on this, as always!

My "big move" into my first home is this Saturday, so I'm hoping that I'll have more time to blog once I get settled (there's so much great marketing stuff to write about and so little time!). That is, if I can break away from painting the walls...

Creativity as responsibility?

I'm excited to be taking a Marketing class on new product development this semester. What's most intriguing is that our instructor is emphasizing creativity and innovation, which has never been directly addressed in any previous course I've taken.

My professor made one comment on this topic that stuck with me ever since. He said that most companies seek small innovations. These innovations typically revise existing products, but don't result in anything dramatically new. This makes sense because these types of incremental innovations are low-risk and relatively cheap. He added that this approach prevents companies from exploring the more risky and costly radical innovations that could result in new product categories. As a result, companies are neglecting opportunities to improve society with breakthrough products.

His words made me think that librarians have a social obligation to be creative and to innovate. This obligation may entail approaches to service that are dramatically different from what we've done in the past. Continually revising services may not be enough to achieve the benefits modern patrons seek.

This week, I'll make a guest post available from a librarian who is helping to radically redefine library services, which will lead into further discussions about libraries as creativity labs.

Get a dose of this Tylenol promotion

I saw a Tylenol ad on T.V. today that features employees promising to do right by customers. Nice idea and all, so I went to check out the Tylenol "Promise" Web site. Here, you can find employees talking about their work and perspectives. Overall, it appears generally unscripted. What struck me most is what a fantastic idea this format would be for librarians. As you well know, we suffer from some fairly annoying stereotypes (like the glasses-wearing, bun-sporting, shhh-ers). I think it would be nice idea if patrons could find their librarians talking about the issues they're concerned about, projects they're working on, hobbies they have, and so on, to put a friendly face on our services. I realize there are privacy issues implicit in this, but I just like the idea of patrons getting to see a more-well rounded version of us has human beings rather than one-dimensional bookish-types. And what a great tool for recruiting to the profession! Just a thought. Have a great Labor Day weekend!

Flying high on outstanding customer service

The CBS Early Show aired a segment this morning called The Friendliest Skies. The star of the piece is a United Airline pilot, Captain Denny Flanagan, who takes it upon himself to bring customer service up to a whole new level. Here are the highlights:

Flanagan...

• buys McDonald's hamburgers for passengers on delayed flights.
• takes pictures of pets stored in cargo to reassure passengers.
• makes sure children flying alone get window seats; calls their parents if there are unexpected delays.
• asks passengers to play in a contest in which they write down their best or worst flying experiences; he later posts them on United bulletin boards so that employees can learn about customers' experiences. (Contest winners, by the way, get a bottle of fine wine).
  
• writes personalized thank-you notes on the back of his business card for first-class passengers who are frequent fliers.

Flanagan insists it only takes a minute to provide these little extras that put the "service" back in customer service. Makes one think about what small surprises we can add to our own services to make them exceptional.

Playing the marketing game...and winning

Over the weekend, I put up a post on the Designing Better Libraries blog called Playful Design. I'm sharing it with you on LM as well because the post's theme is highly relevant to librarian-marketers. In it, I outlined 12 learning principles discussed by James Paul Gee at the Gaming Learning and Libraries Symposium. These learning principles can be applied to library services to make them more enjoyable and widely-used. Play is a serious consideration as we develop meaningful patron experiences. Employing playful elements in our services can:

• Create a feeling of community; Bring together people of various backgrounds
• Engage and excite users by making them active participants
  
• Nurture word-of-mouth communications
• Increase the value of educational services by improving learning outcomes; Teach patrons how to effectively use our services
• Make using the library fun. :-)

Let's get game and play around with our services!

Building a community creativity lab

In case anyone's been wondering what happened to me, I did not fall off the earth! It just feels that way since I've been wrapped up in beginning of the school year craziness and starting my second-to-last Marketing class before completing my certificate - yeah! While it's been insanely busy, I've still been cooking up ideas for the blog and I think there are some exciting developments in the works.

The next project I want to tackle is building on the concept of a community creativity lab as a model for library services. I got some fairly good responses to my previous post on the topic, so I decided to take the concept a bit further. I can't claim to be the first to come up with this general idea, and there's already a lot of outstanding work being done along these lines. However, I thought it was a little unfair to say that libraries should become creativity labs without giving any specifics as to how they could work in reality.

So, in a series of posts, I'm going to tackle questions like:

• What would the founding principles and purpose of a creativity lab be?
• What would it look like in terms of physical spaces, both public and non-public?
• How would the community be involved?
• What services would be offered?

You get the idea. Since there's already evidence of these labs taking shape, I'm going to start with examples I've seen and point out their key elements and build up from there. (I already have a guest post or two coming up that describe some outstanding initiatives). I have no idea how many posts it'll take to fully explore this idea or how long it'll take, but I'm just going to keep plugging away at it. At the end, whatever that may be, I'll assemble the posts into a document that you all can do with what you wish.

Care to be involved? I would really love it if you readers would contribute your thoughts and ideas as we go along. Please comment on any post of interest and I'll incorporate your thoughts into the final paper. If you want to be involved sooner, please send me examples you've seen in libraries or elsewhere that you think resemble "creativity labs." I'll feature them in my posts and use them to define this concept.

Final note: What does any of this have to do with marketing? Faithful readers will know that in marketing, the most important piece of the marketing mix is the product. This series on the library as creativity lab will essentially explore new product ideas for libraries that resonate with today's patrons and their increasingly sophisticated needs. Here's hoping it works! :-)

Let's chat about attracting new users

Well, last week's brainstorm was more like a sprinkle, so I think I'll go back to the usual format where I set a date/time and facilitate a discussion. Let's get together on Tuesday, September 4th at from 4-5pm EST in the Library Marketing Exchange. In October, I'll be presenting to the Wisconsin Public Library Association on the topic of reaching out to new users, so this topic is a timely one for me anyway. I'd love to hear what's worked and what hasn't in terms of gaining new patrons and what questions you have about reaching out to new user groups. If that sounds like a fun talk to you, you know where to go!

Also, the topic of the last brainstorm was innovation. In the chat room, I pointed out some helpful links I'd like to share with you:

• Designing Better Libraries has a great post called Feed Your Hunger for Innovation Inspiration. The post contains bookmark-worthy links on getting your creative juices flowing.
• I found some free mind mapping software that may come in handy when plotting out all of your good ideas. You can learn more about mind mapping here.
• I'm a huge fan of the pen-and-paper approach to creative thinking. This post from DIY Planner discusses the Advantages of Keeping an Analog Work Journal. Awesome!

Have a great week, everyone! Please don't hesitate to send me your ideas for discussion topics.

The big brainstorm begins tomorrow

I hope you'll get a chance to spend a minute or two in the Library Marketing Exchange tomorrow (Thursday) to talk creativity. I chose the topic of creativity not only because it's an ongoing interest of mine, but also because the ability devise original solutions to marketing problems is a must-have skill for librarians. I asked 2 questions that I invite everyone to answer:

1. How can librarians improve their ability to innovate?
2. How can libraries support their patrons' own creative pursuits?

More details on how to participate are here, but it's pretty simple. Just show up anytime and share your thoughts. I'll be in and out of the room as I can tomorrow. After the brainstorming session, I'll summarize the themes that crop up on the blog. Sound good? See you there! :-)

Get your game face on: Understanding and serving gamers

As fellow library marketing enthusiasts, I'm sure most you will agree that attracting new library users involves much more than a "build it and they will come" service mentality. In terms of gaming and gamers, it isn't enough just to plug in a Nintendo or two and hope that masses of people will flood your building. To attract this population we need to truly understand who they are and what value-added services we can provide to connect with them on their terms. Here, then, is my next post in my gaming series that takes a closer look at gamers and what we can offer them.

By the way, if you want an EXCELLENT primer on gaming and library services, you really have to read Jenny Levine's Library Technology Report, Gaming & Libraries: Intersection of Services. In fact, most of the demographic data I'm sharing with you comes from that report, but you'll learn much more by picking up a copy and reading it over yourself.

That said, who the heck are gamers? As Jenny and others point out, most of us are gamers of some form or another. If you play cards, checkers, video games, or Sudoku, you're a gamer. This fact flies smack dab in the face of common stereotypes that make gamers out to be basement-dwelling, socially awkward teenage boys. In fact, Jenny cites a CNN study that found women over 40 years old are the biggest group of online gamers! Furthermore, according to other reports, the average gamer is 33 years old, and 67% of American heads of household play video and computer games. What's so amazing is that gamers span in incredibly wide range of ages, ethnicities, educational backgrounds, and income levels. And you don't have to look far to find just how monumental a force gaming is in the marketplace. Just look at this recent article from GameSpot that says the game Halo 3 broke the all-time record for preorders in North America. If these sheer numbers and demographics don't get your marketing senses tingling with excitement, I don't know what will. This is definitely a significant segment of the population we librarians should be taking a close look at.

While it's all well and good to know who gamers are, it's often not enough just to circulate copies of Mario Kart (though it's definitely not a bad place to start...). Good library marketers know that to be really successful, we must take a look at gamers' underlying motivations and tailor our services to accommodate those needs and preferences. Through some reading and attending the GLLS event last month, I have some ideas about how we can add value to the gaming experience to make it worthwhile for this group to come to the library. Most of my conclusions are based on the exciting case studies and research I heard about that were extremely inspirational. Here are my thoughts, but I also welcome comments from experienced librarian-gamers who have other insights:

• Scale: It's amazing what altering the scale of an experience can do to draw people in. This point was driven home by the gaming initiatives at GA Tech and Lori Critz's summary of their Unreal Tournament. The Tournament featured a gigantic screen (also pictured here) that attracted many students because it created an ambiance they couldn't duplicate in their dorm rooms. It's sort of like the difference between going to a park and going to Disney World. Disney does things big, and sometimes big (big audiences, big attractions, and big events) are better.
• Competition: Surprise! Gamers like to compete. And librarians can help them do that. Just take a look at Ann Arbor District Library's homegrown tournament scoring and management tools. Tools include a leaderboard and blogs that allow gaming patrons to keep up with how they stack up. By facilitating competition, librarians are structuring meaningful experiences for patrons - a HUGE added value. Fortunately for library-land, AADL is making its GT System available free of charge in the near future, and even hoping to have multi-library synchronized tournaments!
• Community: What sold me completely on gaming in libraries is how games draw diverse people together. I was amazed by Eli Neiburger's account of a senior citizen challenging young patrons in DDR Tournament. (Apparently, he was a big hit). To my mind, libraries are not only great at bringing diverse groups together, but doing so is a responsiblity. Community is also an added value because it's not something that many people can find easily, but it's something that most people seek.
• Fun: Ok, this is an obvious one, but fun can be a major attraction. Fun doesn't just happen though (I wish it did! And students in my library instruction classes probably do too! ;-) ). Fun, it turns out, is the result of planning and structure. Consider an article by my #1 librarian hero and the reason I got into reference work, Lisa Norberg. Lisa's article, Play Matters: The Academic Librarian's Role in Fostering Historical Thinking, describes how to make research fun by creating digital sandboxes and other tools that allow students to explore primary resources in a risk-free, engaging format. Digital sandboxes and the like don't create themselves. Librarians need to think strategically about how to make using their services and resources enjoyable.
• Validation: Even though we're not therapists, we have an opportunity to provide some psychological support to patrons by validating their interests and hobbies. At the Symposium, I heard story after story about how just by offering games instead of chastizing patrons for playing them, librarians turned disgruntled youth into fervent library fans. In large part this is because by supporting activities like gaming, librarians give those people who engage in them the recognition and approval that they may not be getting elsewhere.
• New Perspectives: If you haven't heard of Big Games, do yourself a favor and check out Gegory Trefry's talk from the Symposium. Basically, Big Games move games from boards and TV screens to real-life environments, even entire citites. Trefry talked about how libraries themselves could become gaming grounds where patrons could search for codes in books, for example. This point is related to the previous one about scale, but Big Games and related activities are more than just big - they force people to look at everyday objects and places in new ways. Framing environments in new ways is a value-added service (it's tough work and loads of planning!). Portraying the familiar in unfamiliar ways is a great way for librarians to attract gaming audiences.

My next post on this topic will be about how gaming principles can be applied to designing quality library services, and it will appear, appropriately enough, on the Designing Better Libraries blog. In the meantime, let me know what you think: How can we add value to library services for gamers?