"If you promise something clearly, deliver on that promise, and repeat the process, you build strong emotional links to your company with certain consumers. But that’s where the value resides: in my head and your head."

It's true, engineers at a steam generating company don't sit around all day designing a branding strategy to make the customer aware of the electricity it helps produce.

Everyone uses electricity.  Electricity is essential to our way of life.

Everyone reads (well, not everyone can - but that's another issue altogether).  Reading is essential to our way of life.  Not everyone uses their library.

Are librarians thinking about their library branding strategy enough? 

Are libraries relying on the fantasy - 'We exist, therefore people will use the library'?

Getting the word out that libraries support a well informed citizenry is not easy, but it can be done.   

Make sure that your product is the best quality and meets your communitiy's needs.  Your library building will support a well executed strategic plan that includes a good, honest look at what your community needs.

Check out this article for more inforamtion on the discussion ... 'Why Branding Is An Artifact of the Past', fastcodesign.com, Brian Millar.

photo: K.Watson, for the Wallkill Public Library, Geek Your LIbrary Campaign M.L.Carolan - CEO

Visiting DC this summer?

Check out this fascinating library dedicated to all things Shakespeare.

The Folger Shakespeare Library has masterfully curated on going exhibits, in house and on-line, a theatre, tours, conservation lab, a shop of course and lots more to interest all ages and of course the Collection...

"The Folger Shakespeare Library collection has both great depth and a broad range. In round numbers, the Folger houses more than 256,000 books; 60,000 manuscripts; 250,000 playbills; 200 oil paintings; some 50,000 drawings, watercolors, prints, and photographs; and a wealth of other materials, including musical instruments, costumes, and films.

 The collection's two great strengths are materials related to the early modern age in the West, from about 1450 to the mid-1700s, and materials related to William Shakespeare and the theater, up to the present day."

 Admission is FREE!  Get out of the heat and find out what was so HOT in Elizabethan England.

Just checking in on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation  work with US Libraries.

Here's the latest link form the foundation web site about their work to foster the community library as a safe Third Place in our lives.

and don't forget the GEEK Your Library program sponsored by OCLC and the Gates Foundation.

Treat yourself to a refreshing read.  Check out this blog subtitled "My review of books I have read."

I am pleased to include a link to a well written and info-dense and critically adept blog written by a young woman whom I have the honour to know.  Childrens' and Young Adult Librarians - you may want to take a look.  It's well worth the read.

Here's a little sample: 

"A friend of mine  recommended this book and when I saw the title I w as  not very enticed but tried it  anyways. I couldn’t put it down there were so many twists in the plot that I would have never thought were coming. It really captivated the idea that imagination is one of the greatest things that anyone can have, without it we would not have so many things, if someone didn’t imagine that we could have portable devises that we could talk through we would never have gotten a cellphone."

PLAN22 delivered our second webinar for the Southern Ontario Library System (SOLS) - Advancing Public Library Leadership (APLL) Institute

We stressed that when a librarian leads the collection of data and the authorship of the library building program - the completed library  project will meet the needs of the community and fulfill the Strategic Plan.

"With public employee unions under attack in states like Wisconsin, and with cities across the country looking to trim budgets, behold a town built almost entirely on a series of public-private partnerships — a system that leaders around here refer to, simply, as “the model.”" - NYTimes

Sandy Springs, Georgia.  Go ahead, do the search. 

Where would a member of a private city run on contracts to private companies go to find information like that resident in a public library? Is the 'pubic' library in the neighbouring town providing service? How does that work?

Good questions.

Here's what is written in the 'Newcomers Guide' to the Sandy Springs community about the Library:

"The Atlanta-Fulton Library System serves residents of Sandy Springs with a local library." my note: this branch operates 7 days a week!)
Atlanta-Fulton County Library System web site for the Sandy Springs Branch.

The branch is at the heart of the Sandy Springs Community.

If this is the future; and this is the present, then I'm getting pretty nervous.  There is real and present support for this model of living in the "United" States of America and in Canada (there is a blog I won't give mention to in print that loudly supports the Canadian dream of the tea party ideal- including this private city.)

Included in our webinar for SOLS - Building a New Library, Taking the Lead - is a talking point under the topic 'Trends', "the gap between the ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ will continue to widen in our lifetime, on a global scale."  Sandy Springs,GA, a contracted community, is an example of that widening that reinforces my decision to add that subject to our presentation.

Here's an interesting statistic: from the income, earnings and wages data.

Estimated median house or condo value in 2009: $442,100 (it was $316,600 in 2000)