Minutes for L2Crew Meeting: January 29, 2009

(10:30 - 11:45a.m.)

Group members in attendance were Melinda Shelton, Tressa Fancher, Hunter Murphy, Richard Manoske, Michael Fagin and Leslie Deason.

The meeting began at 10:33 A.M. Melinda had news about the new office for the L2Crew. She said that David and Debbie had finished moving out books. She would like to contact Hope about a desk, chair, and new lock for the room. She also needs to contact IT about making sure the room has Internet connection and phone lines. The room will also need to have a temperature adjustment because it tends to get hot and stuffy.

Ms. Sirmans sent and e-mail to Melinda concerning the L2Crew. She said that she is proud of the group and wants to be kept updated.

Melinda and other group members (Richard and Hunter) began talking about the completed virtual tours of the libraries. Melinda would like to get a professional account of MapWing She would also like to talk to Hope about photography plans for the branch libraries.

The Alabama 360.com adds virtual tours of sites throughout the state to its website. AL 360 uses these tours to market facilities. They will be adding a tour of Birmingham Public Library, beginning with the first floor of the Linn Henley building in the next few days.

Richard Manoske has been creating videos to market BPL and its resources. Richard has created a video of an interview with Jim Baggett and Judge Clemons. He plans to divide this video into eight separate segments that can be uploaded easily to the blog and Intranet. Melinda would like to find a video of last year’s AL Bound event as an advertisement for this year’s event. She will bring her personal editing software to edit videos.

Melinda and Leslie conducted a workshop on website creation for teen librarians. Tressa helped participants with Blogger software. We taught participants how to create a blog entry, including how to add pictures , video and audio. Melinda demonstrated how to create a Delicious account. Delicious allows individuals to create, share and edit links. These links are tagged by subject-type which enables users to search for links on their favorite subject.

Melinda asked for new podcasting ideas. Hunter Murphy made the suggestion to ask patrons “What does the library mean to you?” Richard stated that we could also gather ideas from patron comment cards to use. The group decided that we could include short narration, along with images, music and quotes. Michael Fagin may go to the branches to create podcasts on “What does the library mean to you?”

The group then moves to ideas for marketing the library on Facebook, MySpace and Beebo. Kathy works with Facebook but could not attend the meeting. Michael Fagin has updated pictures from FlickR. Hunter and some other group members stated that we might change the music on the MySpace page. We could add music from bands that also have a MySpace page. Melinda stated that if there was anyone interested in becoming an administrator for the Facebook group page, please let her know.

Melinda invited everyone to think of new ways that we can use Twitter to advertise library events. Kathy already schedules Twitter to send out updates on blog entries, calendar events, etc. Richard updated the group that libraries have been sending in photos to post on the library’s FlickR account. Richard has been answering questions about taking photos and how they should be posted to the FlickR site.

Melinda discussed new ideas for promoting blogging within the library. It was agreed that we do need to look for ways to encourage more staff members to blog. Richard Manoske stated that blog entries could be written on the information discussed during LA training. David might be willing to blog about job hunting skills and business databases. We create more blog entries on current and local events. Richard Manoske mentioned adding book trailers to the blog as well. He said that he wanted to add some trailers for African-American titles, but they contained inappropriate content.

Hunter Murphy mentioned that it was time for us to get e-commerce. We could add BPL logos to all types of materials for marketing purposes. Melinda said that she would look further into this possibility.

Melinda mentioned the possibility of an adult summer reading program this year. She has been contacted by a group of young women who would like to see an adult summer reading program created. Melinda will talk to this group further about creating a video in which they will discuss summer reading and what the library has meant to them.

Hunter Murphy mentioned that he would like to have a theme for the new year such as: “BPL: Not Your Average Library.” Everyone agreed that we should organize our ideas around a specific theme.

The meeting ended at 11:45. We will be looking for ways to make the library more relevant to patron’s daily lives.