You are connected to event: WebJunction Themes: Custom High Contrast Terminal Notepad Green & Gold Sunrise Default Font Size: 14 18 24 30 36 42 48 54 60 72 84 96 Font Family: Arial Comic Courier New Helvetica Tahoma Trebuchet Verdana Background: Black Dark Blue Blue Green Dark Cyan Lime Aqua Olive Gray Dark Red Silver Red Fuchsia Yellow White Text Color: Black Dark Blue Blue Green Dark Cyan Lime Aqua Olive Gray Dark Red Silver Red Fuchsia Yellow White Scroll: . . >> Jennifer: We are at the top of the hour. I will take a couple more seconds to remind folks that if you do have technical questions, if your audio is not working, if you're having trouble seeing the slides, post those to the Q & A panel. And that is the panel towards the bottom of the panels on the right side of your view. And if you do have problems outside of the room, accessing -- leave the room, and you're having trouble, this information is also available in the email I sent you. You will just want to make sure that you have today's event number handy if you need to talk to the WebEx technical support folks. All right. We know we have a big crowd joining us. We want to be efficient with our time today so we can go ahead and get started. I will introduce myself. I'm Jennifer Peterson, the community manager at Webjunction. I will help host the event. My coproducer, Sharon Streams, WJ Support, you will see her in the support panel and it is great to be working with Sharon. I'd also like to thank our generous Webjunction state library partners, and especially to all of you you from those states who are joining us. State partnerships make our webinars free and available to all regardless of where you're joining from. So, thank you to all of you. And also, a special thanks to ARSL, association for rural and small libraries. I'm very proud and pleased to be serving on the board, and really glad that you all are here as a part of those that are a part of ARSL representing rural and small libraries. I'm going to talk a little bit ARSL later, but I will mention real quickly, we're very excited about our fall conference in September being hosted in Raleigh, north Carolina, in collaboration with the state library of North Carolina. And I'm very, very pleased to welcome our presenter for today. Joey Holmes library assistant at the Laurens County Library. He was a presenter at last year's ARST conference in Texas. I'm very pleased that he is bringing his excellent work to you today. Welcome, Joey. I will unmute you here. Okay. Joey. >> Joey: Yes. >> Jennifer: Welcome. >> Joey: Thank you. Glad to be with everyone here today. We're going to go ahead to start if that is okay with you, Jennifer. >> Jennifer: Excellent. >> Joey: And this is adult programs on a zero budget, and PR systems used to promote them. Programs without PR and PR without programs for me it doesn't go anywhere. They are inseparable. With Laurens County Library in Laurens, south Carolina, we have the Laurens library, Clinton Public Library, and bookmobile. Web site the fourth branch of the library, open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, check out E-books from our web site. At the Laurens County Library, we consider ourselves a mid-sized library, nine full-time employees, three part-time and a little bit about our building. The meeting room is -- it could be bigger, but we do quite well with it. We enjoy the space that we have. We have -- there I am. My background is not in library science, it is in criminal justice and outdoor recreation with wildlife science. I don't have preconceived notions of what should or shouldn't happen, what is or isn't right. Thinking outside of the box virtually all of the time. I wanted my program to have the bells and whistles and now that we have that out of the way, in 2008 a new director here and she wanted to -- food drive for the local food banks and holiday season. And as she was telling us about this, I said that sounds like a great chance to get in the local paper. And I know from experience that newspapers like to have something handed to them that they don't have to pay someone on their staff to write. So, I suggested that, and she said, okay. Well, let me see it before you submit it. I thought, okay. And then after food for finds, we had all of this canned food piled up. Wait, we should get a picture for the paper. She looked at me and said I'm going to put you in charge of PR. I fell into that. PR and public image, and public image is definitely something that we can and should at all times try to control and enhance. Okay. I went with with slide because the simple reason was South Park was brutal to the library industry and the Simpsons had too am things to choose from so I went with this from Family Guy. We should be in the newspaper a lot for positive reasons. Not because a celebrity O.D. out front or something foul going on. We should be in the newspaper for the right things, right reasons, the things that we are doing to positively impact the community. Because every time we're mentioned in the newspapers, our public image, as a place that brings the community together, that is going to be enhanced. And my whole goal is to have people constantly say and thinking whether they come to the programs or not, see us in the paper and constantly thinking about us, never forgetting about us. Saying in their heads, library a place where there is always something going on. Bringing the community together. That is when our public image improves. A Facebook page that I was delated with. You are from Laurens when, in May of last year, a spontaneous post on you know you're from Laurens when -- it looks like this library has some really cool events. I thought, wow, I'm actually reaching people and we're making a difference and we're starting to be seen as a positive influence in the community. That is really, really what I want to be noticed and remembered. When we improve our public image, of course we increase the visits. We increase our value to the community, and when we're more valuable to the community, we're more valuable to the political powers and very self-serving, I know, but this helps secure our future. Public relations to inform, remind, persuade. But without having anything going on, P.R. doesn't have anything to say. And when I was put in charge of PR, we didn't really have much going on, and so I started thinking, how could we? What have we done in the past to get in the paper? We have done it with activities and with special events and with programs. That's how we get in the papers. My thought was, well, if we want to be in the news once a month, we will have to put on an event once a month. And this leads to these questions. What kind? Who? How much? And there are traditional programs and these were never go away. Free is always the goal. Free is good. Authors are going to be interested in doing it to sell their books. Musicians to sell their CD's, and by using those there is usually no cost. This is what it amounts to. Who do you know or know of, friend, relative, whoever, who has special knowledge to inform or entertain? Who are you willing to impose on? If you are not going to ask them, chances are they are not going to volunteer. We don't have many people that come to us and say I want to do a program. We have some, but not many. We have to go out and look for them. You decide on the event, you book the event, and your presenter on the time, date, you reserve the meeting room, go through all of the little steps. Your director is on board. You get all of your ducks in a row. Sometimes this happens, and this is a stumbling block. I have had this happen a couple of times, people have said we would like a little bit of compensation. And what I've done before is -- I'll tell you a quick story. I had a nephew who wanted to go on a mission trip -- oh, okay. And this mission trip was going to cost $2,000. And the kid says, tuition is really getting to mom and dad and I need this money. But it is expensive to go on this trip. What do you think I should do? Your aunt sue and I could help you some, give you a little bit, but not much, but you have a lot of aunts and uncles. They -- you know, we started to make a list. What if everybody kicked in $50? And we started to make a list of the aunts, uncles, grandparents, teachers, ministers, friends, scout leaders and all of these people and before you knew it, we had the $2,000 pretty much lined up for his mission trip. $50 at a time. You can ask one person for $500. Or you can ask 10 people for $50. And so on and so on. That is what I have done before when the time came to raise money for programs. Don't go to one person and ask for a large lump. Split it up and go to a number of people who you think could help a little bit. That type of thing. Promoting the event is another thing that is the really big deal. We create all of our promo materials. We don't have some of -- some of the larger libraries talk about their event staff, PR staff, PR staff go to the art department and the art department comes back and then it goes -- you know, I'm all of those here. I do all of those myself, and we push it through. We use flyers that I make on publisher, and we use these on the front doors and the front desks and the bulletin boards and other special locations. I will mention those in a minute. But the fliers all look rather similar. I try to make a bit of a branding think so that the people would recognize one of our fly ERers. There is the headlines, the opening paragraph, who, what, when, where, how, who. We close with a little more about how it is important and that it is free and our information is at the bottom. We give out 20 to 30 bookmarks a day at the front desk, and they might as well promote something. They might as well advertise or push something. We are going to give them out anyway. Let's let them work for us. It gives you an opportunity to speak to the patrons when they're checking out that -- that, you know, we mentioned that we have this event coming up and we have something that we can put in their hands. We use our outside sign, six lines, 14 characters per line, and, yes, that is snow in South Carolina, which is not seenvy often. We use Facebook and on our Facebook we use our Facebook events a good bit. 334 people who like the Laurens County Library. When I set up a Facebook event or announcement, it is seen by those 334 likers. I will log off of the library's Facebook and I will log on to my Facebook where I have at this point a little over 900 friends, and I can share this event. And if you click on to the RSVP for the event, you can invite your friends personally. So we do that. Then you know you're from Laurens Facebook page which is seen by 3,400 people. We promote it in house. Charlie Miller our branch manager at Clinton. Peggy Kennedy our web site, Leigh Tumblin is in email contact with the home school families so that they push each event. We send it out to the press three weeks prior. And this is sort of like -- it is more or less like a wedding invitation that you send it out too early and people tend to forget about it and if you send it out late, they don't have time to plan it. We are dealing with a weekly paper here in Laurens County, so we don't want to send it out the week of, because then if there is a high-speed chase or a shootout or a politician getting in trouble or something like that, we get bumped. We send it out three weeks, three times that we have a chance to get in the paper. We go to the Laurens County Advertiser. Clinton chronicle is seen by 4,200 people a week and the other smaller papers in the periphery of Laurens County are good too. For the big events we send it to the dailies in Greenville, Spartanburg and greenwood. We have local news web sites called goLaurens.com and goClinton.com. They're looking for stuff to promote. They're looking for stuff to put -- without news and events and activities, they don't have anything. So we go there. Local radio stations, AM stations in Laurens County, great. WNCW is public radio, and we're sort of on the edge of their broadcast range, but we do get help out of them and in particular with public radio, if it is something having to do with let's say outdoors, Appalachian trail, something having to do with independent music or things like that, we get good response from them then. Local television stations, Fox, NBC, CBS affiliates are listed here. We have had some success with them. We were back in the fall, a few minutes on a show on WSBA, channel 7 in Spartanburg. That was seen by 75,000 people. So, I think we did real good work with that event. Others -- the Main Street Laurens organization. The Chamber of Commerce is great for helping us. A lot of people get their cable through the telephone cooperative, and they get their internet and email through there, too. They help us promote things. Humanities council events calendar on their web site, we have friends with the arts and curriculum department for our local school district and, of course, the state library does good. Every state I believe has a department of parks, recreation and tourism that we can use, if we can get to them in time for their publishing. And that's getting to somebody in time for the publishing is kind of difficult in terms of magazines. Southern living -- kind of difficult to get to, and we have South Carolina Living Magazine, small magazine put out -- that is seen by 450,000 people in state. Small magazine, but almost a half million people see that. And then, again, the little magazines that you pick up in the lobbies of restaurants and hotels and stuff, what's going on in the mountains? What's going on on on the beach? What is going on here and there? Little things like that are usually published by the local newspapers. South Carolina, we have boy scouts and girl scouts. I never thought this was a big deal. But I found out in the mountains -- in South Carolina, upstate upstate, 12,500 girls. The scout leaders are always looking for something to do. Get with them at the local level, get with them on the district level, and you will get your information in front of a lot of people. Okay. Moving on to programs. The real deal here. Early when I was at the library, I wanted to do a nature study series because I had been teaching wildlife science for years prior to coming to the library. This was poorly to fairly attended at best. And in February of 2009, I heard of a somewhat local fellow who had written a book and I went to the boss and I said hey, this guy just published his first novel. We could probably get him to do a book signing. She said well, don't spend any money. And I thought, okay. Well, we'll do that. And then in March of 2009, DORy Sanders did a book signing. She is always going to draw a crowd. In July of 2009, my son came and did a program about the Laurens county's local blues heritage and legacy. And we -- that was well attended also. So, we've got a little bit of an interest going in having programs now. Based on that we made a plan. And I think we're going to take a quick break now and we're going to see that -- if we have anything that Jennifer needs us to attend to, any business. >> Jennifer: Yeah, excellent sharing going on in chat. I'm so excited to see folks using chat in that way. A few questions that folks wanted you to address. >> Joey: Okay. >> Jennifer: When you talked briefly about funding, you know, innovative funding, there was a question about not being able to ask the public for donations, and already people have shared their experiences, but namely that their friends can do that fundraising. I know library foundations, if folks have them can do that fundraising. But are there other ways that you -- I don't know if that is a challenge for you all in terms of not being able to ask the public for funding, but can you talk a little bit more about how you have been able to gather funding? >> Joey: We have asked -- I had asked the boss at one point about getting some money for one particular organization that was going to come and do a presentation. And she mentioned that -- just the funds weren't there, and did I know of any way to come up with them? Any way of raising money. And I said well, I can -- I know a few people, a few kind, generous people in the community that I could -- I could ask this fellow -- I'm talking $25 apiece to this guy who was a real leader in community and this guy who was a retired banker. And this lady who was a retired teacher, and several of those people actually gave me twice of what I had asked for. >> Jennifer: Okay. >> Joey: Once we needed just $50, $75 to cover someone's travel. I checked with a local sorority of retired teachers who meet here, and I asked them, I said, would you all be willing to sponsor her travel? They said we don't have any money. Knowing the number of people you have involved, if you kicked in $5 apiece that would cover it. She said oh, I hadn't thought of it like that. They were excited to be involved and be part of the presenting of this lady's program. They pleased to be able -- they were pleased to be able to help sponsor it. >> Jennifer: That's great. Excellent reminder. I thought there was a great question. Somebody said do you have a promotion guideline or set of outlines so that you don't miss steps and related to that folks were wondering how far ahead you send some of those press announcements? >> Joey: I try to do it three weeks in advance on the press announcements, Facebook events, things like that. I have a three-page list with emails, phone numbers, fax numbers of the press outlets that I use and each time I'm going to send out the press on an event, I will print off one of these and I will write the date, what the event is, and then I will just put email like March 9th, 12th. Email March 9th-12th and so on until I have filled out the list. I don't do everything on the list for every program. >> Uh-hmm. >> Joey: It is like a checklist. >> Jennifer: That's excellent. Yeah, definitely checklists are good. There were other questions and people are actually answering each other, but in terms -- in terms of being fewer -- having fewer staff, some of the folks that are with us today are working on their own, maybe with a few volunteers. So just in terms of being mindful of lack of budget or lack of the resources, I think -- I know that many of your examples really showcase how little you need to have, and how little work it takes knowing that the community -- the folks that you are engaging with in the community also are bringing -- they're doing the bulk of the work. So, I think we can go ahead and continue. Folks, keep posting your questions. I know that many of you are answering each other's questions, but we will also have a point at the end where we can catch any of those that we have missed. Joey, I think people are chomping at the bit to hear your examples because they're sharing their own programming examples. >> Joey: I did develop a plan and looked at the web sites for most of the libraries, and most ideas adapted to us, and -- yeah, I stalked them. I look at what they do and I thought what would work for us? And we started trying to implement things, and by December of 2009, I scheduled a program a month for 2010. January, we did mitt night, 35 people attending. They were asking when we would have another knit night. We had it in February and we had 57 people attend, but a lot of those were kids who had worked on knitting projects in art classes and had projects on display. In March, we did the third knit night with only 12 people coming. By the time March rolls around in south Carolina, it is usually quite pretty and it has warmed up a bit and people are not thinking about mittens and hats and scarves or things. Knitting sort of falls away during the warm months. February, we plan scrapbook night. And it was fairly well attended. But some of those hard-core scrapbook people, they spend hours and hours and hours creating just one page. And we didn't really have that much time to devote to that evening. And in March, we had the rabbit lady. Ms. Hayward, she has champion blood-line rabbits, and these rabbits are show rabbits. She will dress them up in little clothes that she makes and take pictures of them on various adventures and working in their gardens -- it's adorable. And she turns these into calendars and cards and little books. When she does this, the kids eat it up. One great thing about kids coming, if the kids -- they can't drive, so someone has to come with them. And we had the rabbit lady and it was well attended. Friends of the library meeting, photographer that had been to all of the state parks and photographed them in all seasons and assembled a book about that. April we had a wildlife photographer who came and he shot most of south Carolina's reptiles, amphibians, birds, mammals and talked about some of his work and his adventures. April 15th, 2010, author came to do a book signing. And five people -- this is a point of shame. Five people -- one of those was Dr. Rains and one was Mrs. Rains and the other three worked for us. And I was embarrassed and humiliated by the turnout. This is national library week and we had five people come. And what can I say other than we do not do as well with authors and book signings as I wish we could. People want entertainment. People want -- they want -- the atmosphere, they don't want to see somebody writing a book. And I wish they worked better but they just don't for us. And in May we had Hunter come back and do the blues program again and it was well attended again. In May, we had a D.J. come and do the history of Carolina beach music and that was fairly well attended. The roses program on June 16th was not as well attended. But that day was high school graduation about two miles from here, so we knew we were going up against that and that made it tough. This was not fun but an important lesson for me. I had a friend who had hiked the Appalachian trial by herself, 2,178 miles from Georgia to Maine. You can see through hiking the Appalachian trail alone -- the truth is most people to hike it hike it alone. Because if you are a little faster or slower than your hiking buddies, you will be walking by yourself anyway. Most people hike it alone but a lot of people don't realize that. Unfortunately the day of her presentation, she got in touch with us, someone from her home did and she was sick, in the hospital actually. What do you do? We slapped cancelled on all of our flyers, announced it on Facebook -- we still had 20 people that showed up for that. This program was going to be empowering for women and great for outdoor enthusiasts and wonderful for fitness buffs, three angles that we were excited about but it didn't happen. We still had 20 people that came to see this presentation. We bounce back in August of that year with the coupon lady. Couponing is a big deal right now. We on August 5th, we had this lady in our meeting room. About two blocks away, a power line broke. We lost electricity. August 5th, and South Carolina is hot. Meeting room on the side of the building that gets the afternoon sun. There was no air, but yet nobody left. Everybody stayed. Everybody wanted to hear what this woman had to say. It was well attended. And people were really, really interested in saving money. So, we had a great time with this. And I think couponing is popular probably on a nationwide level. I think there are even TV shows devoted to it now. In September we did beginning genealogy with 38 people. Social Security web site, navigating that and internet safety. Social Security web site and internet safety those are important things, but they're not fun things. So -- and I feel that is why they were not attended well. They're just not fun. And people I believe are really looking for some excitement and some fun. These -- like I say, these are important and I'm glad that we did them, but they were not well attended. This was well attended. The quilt show. It took a long time to pin up all of the quilts but we got them up on display and the quilt guild ladies had a great time. A lot of guests and visitors come in to see them and this was a fun event. This was fun, too. Our local senior citizen ukulele band and I know you've all got one, they brought in a fellow to do a workshop for them. When he did the workshop, that's great. But he had the afternoon off after the workshop, I'm come and do a little show and won't charge you anything and I'm sell some CD's I hope. So, we set it up and 52 people came. This was fun. I got this idea from the McCormack County Library, in McCormack, South Carolina. A newspaper man, journalist for many years, and for years he would go along with the sheriff departments when they went in to bust up and raid a still. He would go to court to see the verdicts. He got to know the law enforcement and the moon CHIEN er -- moonshiners. When I mentioned taking flyers to different places, I took flyers down to the little bar and liquor store here in town. We had 32 people attend, and I think just about everybody asked for samples. Of source, that wasn't something that was part of the program. This was a good event. The local high school orchestra, and it is just a strings orchestra. It doesn't involve any percussion. It doesn't involve any reads, any brass, any woodwind or anything like that. There are only about a dozen kids. I always wanted to have a string quartet in the library during the holiday season, but this was better, because the string quartet only has four kids and that will only be four sets of parent, grandparents, siblings and stuff with about 10 kids, we had a much bigger audience. We had this out in the main part of the library. We had a great crowd that night. Didn't play for very long. The library was a disrupted because it was out in the library at large but, wow, it was a lot of fun. Sweet kids. 2010, we had 764 people attended by programs and other people's programs were attended. I am not talking about children or youth activities. But other programs, like the friends program and stuff like that were attended by 122. It was a good year. First year for me running programs. In 2011, we started off the year with this lady. She came to me. She is a friend of the family. I use cloth diapers and make my own baby food and stuff like that, do you think people would be interested? I said let's find out. We had 19 people come. And she has since done this program at other libraries around south Carolina. And we just had a great time with her. Miss Hamilton came to us through the Humanities Council of south Carolina, and she had written a book. We did not claim this as a book signing, but a program that involved an author. We were fairly well attended at that one. Knit night is coming back. Knit night is always coming back. We did well with our 2011 knit night. This program was a result of having gone to Denver in 2010 -- I had -- when I got there, I looked up a friend who lived in Denver and I had not seen the lady in 10 years. We got together and had supper and she was telling me about her work in Uganda in the south Pacific and then she said and in March, it will be the 50th anniversary of the peace corps, and in March we will do bulletin boards and display cases for libraries in Denver. My wheels were turning. When I get back home, I will find some return Peace Corps volunteers, and they do have a listing for them. We got these two. The gentlemen had been an English teacher in Cape Verde and the lady had set up a physical therapy department, first one ever in Butswanna. The friends of the library, annual meeting this year with award-winning preservation architect. We got the rabbit lady back. She has some bunnies there and we just had a great time. We always have a great time with the rabbit lady. And the senior citizen ukulele band came and talk about good attendance. We had really great attendance at this program. This one not so well attended and this one is not fun. It is -- for a lot of people, fitness and weight loss is a point of misery. But we did give it a try. This one may work better if you can plan it for very early in the year when people are still on the January weight loss band WAGon type thing. As it was in May, it was not well attended. Nor was this one, the southSouth Carolina State Parks, the first Thursday night in June, again, we're going up against graduation at Laurens high school, and we actually know we're going to lose people by having a program that night but that's the night that we do it. The lady featured in the photos works for the southSouth Carolina Parks Department, with 47 state parks, from the mountains to the sea, we have a lot to offer and I would love for people to know more about the beauty that is South Carolina. This lady had written a book -- actually she didn't write it. Her uncle wrote it, a series of letters that he sent home from World War II. The lady came in possession of those letters after her aunt passed away. She found them and realized that she needed to share them with the world and she put them together into a book. Again, you would think with the greatest generation and the pride of the history of World War II that this would have been attended a little better than it was, but, here gone, another example of how we don't do as well with authors. Here we have a fellow who through hiked the Appalachian trail alone, but more than that, a 69-year-old retired widower. This fellow drew a good crowd. He was empowering senior citizens, appealing to fitness enthusiasts and he was great for outdoorsmen. Through hiking the Appalachian Trail, as a retired widower at the age of 69 was a good one. I found this fellow, an article about him in the newspaper, and realized that he was from a little town up the road. There was someone in the phone book with his name and I called him out of the blue and I asked him about it. He said, yeah, I talk to the rotary club and I guess I could come here and talk. I have slides and video I could put together a little thing to watch and so that is what we did. And a very nice program. We had an acoustic jam session in October of 2011. And 30 people were there. Half brought instruments. The others came to listen and tap their feet. We had a good time with that. That was to set the mood for this. The Smithsonian traveling exhibit new harmonies. During the fall, we had 800 square feet of Smithsonian kiosks that told the story of music in America. Great thing. We got it through the humanities council. It has traveled in most states now. To get one of these traveling exhibits is fantastic. With that, we had programs. We actually had money through the grant that came with the Smithsonian project. We had a lot of programs based on roots music in America. I'm seeing that -- is the sound okay, Jennifer, or are people losing us -- >> Jennifer: Yeah, keep going. You are sounding great. If you have audio issues look at the Q & A panel. That is where the support can be provided for your technical support, and that way we can keep chat open. >> Joey: Okay. We had our grand opening and ribbon cutting for new harmonies on a Sunday afternoon. We are not open on Sunday afternoons, but we did it this time. We had television news coverage. Two local newspapers, local news web site, radio station was there, and we had 180 people, we had a wonderful shape-note choir there from a local congregation, and it was a small choir, but with a big voice, very powerful and very moving. And a few local politicians came, too. We had a few days after that, the Birth of Song in South Carolina and that was fairly well attended. Jazz folksFolks Blues and More, and we wanted to do something on a Saturday morning more in the line of kids. This lady, maybe she would introduce jazz to some kids and that would be cool. The kids did not really come. It was more attended by adults but we did have a great time. Again, my son comes back because his deep knowledge and deep experience with local blues heritage and tradition. And the fellow in the photograph, John Jeter, owns a local night club. And Mr. Jeter has worked with the likes of many, many in the music business. I mean, there is a fellow who has had Joan Baez on his stage. He has worked with these people, he has worked with their agents and he knows what the performer wants, what the agent wants, what the public wants, what the employees and vendors want and that is what he tries to provide. He has some really neat stories to tell about the music business. And finely, a banjo program. For -- African-based instrument that came to the southeast from Africa with many, many years to advance. Traditional style, blue grass style, three finger, two finger style banjo. Dixieland style, which is basically an strum. So, we had 744 come to the programs that I arranged in 2011. And in 2012, already a third of the way into it or a fourth of the way into it. We had -- we've got plans and some of these are not going to make it. Some may. Zumba is real big right now. Yoga is, too, and some libraries are doing that. Chess night is going to be a quick and easy one with games -- you could do the same thing with scrabble or whatnot. A chef I know that does macro biotic gluten free vegan diets said she would come. Antique appraisals, your own version of the road show. Out reach Outreach -- zoo outreach -- it is a big deal when Jack Hannah or Joan Embry, someone on the tonight show or Letterman show or something, it will Garner attention. Railroad history, native American culture would be cool. Next week we're doing one called texting for seniors. Our local telephone company is doing that one. So, now it is your turn. What would you do? And let's look at this thing backwards, December, holiday season is great for music. And with music, you can go to your local high school, local college, there are glee clubs and choirs and bands and things like that that you can get. Probably at little to no cost. Even consider military bands. And the fort Jackson, army band from Fort Jackson is fantastic. They do wonderful things. The national guard has a great band. You can get the military bands at little to no cost. November is a big deal for native American history and culture. And you can go to your local humanities council, speakers bureau, if you have that. Or you could possibly do something through the history department at a nearby college or university. October is great for Halloween and what I did this year, I looked on Amazon and I typed in south Carolina ghosts and I got several books that came up written about the ghost lure. I started to investigate the authors. Two were from upstate and they were interested and coming to do these programs. You can type in paranormal, wherever you are from, and there are likely to be a number of good paranormal investigation clubs that may be willing to come and do programs. January is always international creativity month. A good time for knit night. February, black history month is a good time there. When you start to get into March, April, May, you are thinking about string things that could go well a gardening, and June, July, August -- June and July, we try to do something that has to do with tourism and summer travel. And August, September, here again, you have got things for outdoor adventures or whatever it is that you want to do. So, it's quick and easy to plan or to think in terms of a program a month and what you could do to make that happen real quick with your particular location. I like to keep score. Since this all started out as us trying to find a way to be in the media, in the newspaper, and in the press, I keep score. And in April, we had press 13 times during the 30 days and I keep track of my program attendance, because I want to know what programs are going to work for us and I want to know which ones we just really might not want to try again. And please, if you need to get in touch with me, there is my email, and find me on Facebook, friend me on Facebook, and, again, my name is Joey Holmes and I'm with the Laurens County Library system. Look for me and you can find me there. And if you are in the have -- vicinity of upstate -- if any of the people have an appeal to you that you want to use for programs at your library, let me know. Some I can whole heartedly recommend and SM that I know are interested in doing more, visiting other libraries and doing more presentations. Questions are welcome. >> Jennifer: Questions are -- we have more questions and lots of sharing going on in chat. It is great to see you all jumping in and sharing with each other. Let's get a few of these to run by you, Joey. I thought this was a great question that just came in. It sounds like Joey spends a lot of time on those programs and promoting them. Does he have other duties as well? How do you have time for them? How do you budget your own time in coordinating all of this? >> In the library, everybody takes a turn at the desk. I'm usually on the desk twice a day for two-hour blocks. Which means I have several other hours a day that I'm working with display cases, bulletin boards, PR and programs. We -- pretty much the desk schedule dictates how much time I have to devote to things. >> Jennifer: Right. And then I wanted to have you -- a lot of what you talked about involved partners, you know. Not necessarily formal partners, just partners with individuals that you in your brainstorming identified. And the partnership piece I think comes to play in terms of being able to -- if you do need funding -- I mean, that was the other question. How -- what do you need to pay for? And if you bring in other partners, you know, what is it that they're covering the costs of? There was a little bit of flutter in chat about food covering food costs if folks are hosting. Can you just talk a little bit about how some of those arrangements pan out in terms of what they're bringing to the program as well as maybe what you do provide for -- that costs are on your end? >> With the humanities department or humanities council of south Carolina, when we get a speaker from their speakers bureau, they pay for the speaker. Some speakers take that money and are happy and other speakers take that money and then request further funds for the engagement or for transportation. And when you need that little extra for the transportation, you may have to come up with that. Most of the time if I need -- if somebody is requesting more money, I just can't go to them. The Speakers Bureau from the Peace Corps, neither of those people wanted anything. Hands down, majority of the programs, only two have come in expecting payment. Only two. >> Jennifer: Okay. >> Joey: One was for transportation, and one was just, you know, the people thought that they should be rewarded a little bit. >> Jennifer: Right. There was a lot of great suggestions from folks in chat, but how do you come about deciding when to host your events? Are there specific days that you always have programming. Do you -- you mentioned that sometimes for the senior groups, you can do earlier in the day. Do you have a magic formula for -- >> My magic formula, I have duty Thursday night's. >> Oh okay. >> Joey: That means my programs for the most part are planned for Thursday night and planned for typically the first Thursday of the month. >> Jennifer: We have noticed that you do have events in the library space as well. That music event was in the space. Do people complain about having these events during library hours in those common spaces? >> Joey: If they have complained, they haven't complained to us. And to have them out in the main open area of the library, we did that with the New Harmonies, 800 square feet of kiosks, and while that was here, we had 1,200 kids from the local school district come through to see the Smithsonian exhibit. I know some people got leery of that. Several mornings a week they couldn't sit down where they wanted to and read their morning paper in peace, things like that. But nobody voiced any strong opposition to it and I think everybody knew this is a temporary thing and it is going to be okay. We didn't have any problem with that. Most of the time when we have a musical presentation in the meeting room, we close the door and that is all we need to do to keep it fairly quiet. It is a small room. You don't need a lot of amplification or things like that. It will not get real loud. >> Jennifer: There was a question about whether or not you collaborate with other folks in hosting events off site? Do you do that? >> Joey: I haven't done that. >> Jennifer: Okay. >> Joey: We have a great amphitheater, I think it would be great to set something up at. National Guard Band or something like that to do a program on Memorial Day or Flag Day or something like that. Here again is that our roll or is that the roll of the parks department -- that the parks department needs to take on themselves and so we -- we haven't gone there yet, but I would like to think that there may come a time when we can do something out in the community >> Jennifer: Excellent. I know that that is a great way to sustain some of those relationships where maybe it is time to have that event somewhere else if they have already been a part of the library. Somebody was asking about your excellent flyers, and I will mention that we will get some of Joey's bookmarks and flyers up in -- on -- linked to the archives page. And you do use publisher, I believe -- >> Joey: I just made one template for the bookmarks and I have gone back on that so many times, change out the photo and change out the topper with the -- and I can go back to that backmark page if you want. >> Jennifer: Your flyers are with publisher -- >> Jennifer: Yes, flyers and bookmarks both with publisher. >> Jennifer: Someone is asking to see your checklist of people and aspects of your programming planning. Maybe we can get that and post that as well as a great inspiration to others. >> Joey: All right. Yes. I will have to email that to you. >> Jennifer: Yeah, that's fine. That's fine. There are questions about how folks can continue to share. I want to mention that on the archives page of our sessions, we have actually -- for those of you who haven't noticed yet, Webjunction just refreshed with a new web site and part of that feature allows you all to comment on the event. We're just -- we just literally freshly put ourselves into this site so we're doing some final work, but we will let you all know through email. I will follow up when the archive is available. And, yes, the chat is all a part of the archive. I will put that out. And also try to pull out -- I saw that it was great to see folks sharing their Facebook pages as another way for folks to get inspiration on programming, marketing. Let's see, Joey. There were other questions -- let me see if I can grab a couple of those. There was a question I thought when you talked about measuring your success, there was a question about whether people sort of to the group, but whether folks set up people served by programs each month goal for their library based on either your patron base or service population area. Do you ever do that comparison or setting those kinds of goals -- >> Joey: No, I haven't done that but that is an intriguing idea. And that might be something that we need to look into. >> Jennifer: I know it is interesting as we all are working to demonstrate our impact and value in the community, to be able to maybe have some of that data as well as the stories. I loved that you get that kind of feedback on Facebook. Do you find yourself sharing back some of the success stories or feedback that you do get from folks that attend and come to your events? >> In terms of Facebook -- >> Jennifer: Well, just how -- either Facebook or if you collect the stories of -- >> Joey: One thing that I like to do at each event, each program, is snap a few pictures and then most events we will end up publishing five, six photo album on our Facebook page with pictures from that night and maybe mention the next day how much fun it was and how much we appreciate that presenter doing a super job and stuff like that. Another thing always, always, always send your presenter a thank you letter. >> Jennifer: Excellent reminder. >> Joey: Please do that. And an email is one thing, but when you use your letterhead and you send that thank you letter with your signature on it, that means more than just getting an email, I believe. >> Jennifer: Absolutely. >> Joey: I always try to do that, putting together my package, the bookmarks, press release, the flyer, the thank you letter is a part of it. It is part of every package. >> Jennifer: Absolutely. Somebody did ask how -- how the pictures were taken. Do you try to do that or do you delegate someone else to take pictures during those events? >> Joey: I try to be in there, and with our little tiny camera, try to take the pictures and it is something that I can work up typically the next day, the day after a program, I've got several things to do, change out all of the flyers, change the outside sign, post pictures from the event, things like that, things that are DEFdefinitely going to come. Things like that definitely come the day after the program. >> Jennifer: Excellent. That's great. We are at the top of the hour. I know that Beth has things for posting. There is a big buzz. We know that pinterest -- I want to make sure that you know that Webjunction does host ongoing events and we will keep you up to date on that. Joey, thank you so much. As I said to you after your presentation in FRIS -- FRISco -- people are entertained and you are bringing great learning to your community too. Thank you so much. >> Joey: Thank you. I appreciate everybody sticking with us. >> Jennifer: Absolutely. I wanted to mention. ARSL, visit us on our web site and also note that we are gathering for our annual conference just north of where Joey is in Raleigh, North Carolina and registration for ARSL will be open very soon. Mark your calendar and come visit us at ARSL. I will put the link in there. Thank you all. And thank you to Anne for captioning today. Copyright © 2012 Show/Hide Header