It's All About THEM: Successful Virtual Reference Marketing
Tuesday July 24th, 2007, 10:30am—4:30pm
Pyle Center, Madison Wisconsin
Buff Hirko, former statewide virtual reference project coordinator with the Washington State Library and co-author of "Virtual Reference Training: The Complete Guide to Providing Anytime, Anywhere Answers" will spend a day with AskAway participants working with us on Virtual Reference Marketing. Good marketing builds on a foundation of great customer service. But it's a big process—planning, defining goals, identifying audiences, branding, testing web site usability, getting staff buy-in, refining the program—and it never ends. This interactive workshop will offer practical strategies and techniques for both small and large organizations, good and bad examples from Libraryland and the outside world, and resources for ideas and methodologies. Participants are encouraged to bring local marketing samples for evaluation. We'll hear brief examples from Mark Ibach and Bill Pardue two local experts on their endeavors to increase the visibility of AskAway in Wisconsin and Illinois.
Bios
Buff Hirko, prior to her retirement in 2006, was statewide virtual reference project coordinator affiliated with the Washington State Library in Olympia. She coordinated grant demonstration projects, training, marketing, evaluation, and other activities focused on developing digital reference service in all Washington libraries. She is the co-author with Mary Bucher Ross of "Virtual Reference Training: The Complete Guide to Providing Anytime, Anywhere Answers," published by the American Library Association in 2004. A frequent speaker and regular contributor to professional library publications, she holds her MLS from University of California at Berkeley she now works as Word Merchant providing library consulting services.
Mark Ibach currently serves as the Marketing and PR Coordinator for the South Central Library System. Previously spent 8 years working in community newspapers, and later for the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction as a publications editor. Among his duties was writing and editing Channel, and subsequnetly he created and launched Channel Weekly.
Bill Pardue is the Virtual Services Librarian of the Arlington Heights Memorial Library and chair of the AskAway Illinois Advisory Committee. Prior to working with AskAway, he was involved with the MyWebLibrarian project, a joint venture of the North Suburban and Alliance Library Systems in Illinois.