2011 ILF Conference Update

Twenty-eight librarians walked away with some really cool bags of Cauli Le Chat and Beatrix Butterfly giveaways when they attended our workshop called Animal Odyssey: Marketing With Library Animals at today's Indiana Library Federation (ILF) Conference in Fort Wayne, Indiana.  The workshop was a joint effort between Beatrix, moi, and our minions from Greenwood Public Library (Greenwood, Indiana) and Mooresville Public Library (Mooresville, Indiana), respectively.  This was the final day of the 2011 ILF Conference, and we wanted attendees to have something memorable to take home with them.  What could possibly be better than goodies with MY image emblazoned on them?  Well, Beatrix's, too.  Win-win, I'd venture.

Minions and "Flat" Cauli III presented a PowerPoint slideshow with some fun videos and cool music by my Library's composer, whom I call The Music Man.  Courtesy of Greenwood Public Library and Baskets From Junior's Farm, Beatrix gave away a free prize, an official Beatrix Butterfly basket filled with Hershey chocolate bars!  Beatrix knows what makes librarians happy.

There were many thoughtful questions and comments following the presentation, and one particularly caught my good ear.  You have probably already heard about service slobberdogs who help improve human literacy skills by having humans read to them.  (Incidentally, I call all canines slobberdogs.  They slobber.  Just a fact, Jack.) Well, libraries without resident animals (or which have decided not to have resident critters) could form partnerships with groups such as Paws to Read or Furry Friends, whose service slobberdogs could visit libraries to interact with patrons.  In effect, these slobberdogs would become honorary "spokescritters" of the libraries, even though they don't actually live there.  Once again, it's a marketing win-win for both libraries and animal-promoting literacy organizations.  There might be some forms to sign for permissions, but that's for the library bosses to hammer out.

This is just one example of how slobberdogs could join us kitties, bunnies, birds, rodents, reptiles, fish, insects, and other critters in promoting our libraries and their activities, programs, or collections.  Slobberdogs are great marketing dudes, as everybody loves them, even though they slobber relentlessly.  Human's best friend, and all that, so they say.  Of course, we felines are superior company--we're superior everything--but I value slobberdogs for their many virtues, and your libraries would do well to bask in the goodwill they could generate.

We hope everyone who attended our workshop today enjoyed it and was inspired to use "spokescritters" to promote their libraries.  Hey, just this week my blog passed 40,000 viewings!  Somebody's reading my insightful comments.  Now they just need to send me some canned tuna-in-oil.  Name brand, if you please.

The Beatrix & Cauli Brands Are Top-Flight, Sure Enough,

Cauli Le Chat

MPL Roving Reporter

ILF News Update

P.S.  Marketing is all about brand name recognition, and this is true of libraries as everything else.  Brands have been included in song lyrics for as long as I've been listening to music, which, counting each of my nine lives, is a long time, for sure.  Consider as an example of the genre this classic by Carl Perkins, "Levi Jacket (and a Long Tail Shirt)" (1958), recorded during his Columbia Records days.  Perkins crowned the rockabilly style and influenced everybody in pop music.