AuthorMaggie Kay Hall-Librarian, Mother, Life-Long-Learner and Literacy Advocate |
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Wessendorff Middle School Library: Plan of Action
The WMS Library Plan of Action presents opportunities for our library staff to elevate the academic profile within the community by increasing awareness of the critical role that the library can play in student learning through technology, research, reading, writing, maker-space, and other academic related activities. The library has also been shown to help students grow socially, teach them about our economy, and the workplace. It is widely accepted that schools with librarians have higher scores on high-stakes testing compared to schools which do not have a library. A proactive and strategic marketing effort is important to maximize our goal in growing our library and thus our student learning community. We want more attention given to the services and resources that we offer, thus I have outlined our campus library marketing plan below (Lee, 2000). Goals Wessendorff strives to be recognized for its library’s excellence in technology, stimulating atmosphere, and resources. The library will continue to raise awareness of all that the it offers throughout the campus, district, and community. The WMS library will continue to promote services and programs while anticipating the needs of our middle school students and their teachers. The library staff will continually work with partners to promote the development of funds. The WMS library’s primary goals are as follows:
Target Users: Our primary users are of course, the students attending WMS are our primary target audience. We are also targeting students’ parents and eliciting their involvement in after-school programs hosted by the library. Other targets are of course educators who can benefit from the library’s curricular supports and technology resources in the classroom (Westbrook, 2001). Tactics and Actions: Host a campus principal forum (including lunch) twice a year. Host regular meetings for educators (include tea/hot chocolate) with library staff. Qualitative Measures:
The Wessendorff Middle School Library is:
It is important to evaluate how well the library and media center is progressing in order to determine what is working, what needs to be improved, what needs to change, etc. Marketing strategies should be evaluated annually, in addition to monitoring the library’s online catalogue and database activity. The WMS librarian will evaluate which searches are being made the most, which information packages are most requested, etc. These evaluative efforts can provide the librarian’s staff with useful data showing which services and resources are the most prominent (Dempsey, 2009). Evaluation and reflection provides accountability measures while helping to improve the effectiveness and quality of our call to action marketing plan. Evaluation measures can come from a variety of methods that collect and analyze data and trends (Broido, 2004). Today, the trends in the public-school library are breaking traditional methods by discovering new and innovative ways to deliver services to the student and other users, while continuing to maintain traditional core values such as customer service, a love for reading, and the development of life-long learning. It is crucial that public school librarians understand how to effectively market themselves to their campus and community and promote their importance and value to the community which it serves. Creating this marketing plan is one of the important elements to these efforts. With all the key elements mentioned in this marketing plan, the Wessendorff Middle School Library can ensure its longevity in serving 21st century learners (Abram & Luther, 2004). References: Abram, S. & Luther, J. (2004). Born with the chip. Library Journal, 129:8, 34 - 38. Broido, E. (2004). Understanding diversity in millennial students. New Directions for Student Services, no.106, 73 - 85. Dempsey, K. (2009). The accidental library marketer. Information Today, Inc. (p. 16) Lee, D. (2000). Marketing for libraries: Theory and practice. Mississippi Libraries 64 no. 3: 101. Westbrook, L. (2001). Identifying and Analyzing User Needs. New York: Neal-Schuman Publishers, Inc.
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