Q&A with 2018 John Cotton Dana Award Winner, DC Public Library By Celia Zampitella (Communications Specialist, EBSCO Information Services) EBSCO Information Services spoke with Kandace Foreman, Deputy Director of Marketing and Communications at the DC Public Library, about its award-winning goDigital Portal and its campaign theme: Watch. Read. Listen. Learn.
How has implementing public relations at your library improved its community involvement?
Briefly describe your winning campaign. What was the goal? The DC Public Library’s goDigital Working Group, a knowledgeable cross-functional section of library staff and web development consultants, launched goDigital. It’s an easy-touse web portal that exists inside the library’s main website, which allows users to find everything related to the library’s online digital collection in one, user-friendly location. The working group was charged with increasing the awareness and usage of the library’s digital collection through a citywide awareness campaign. The working group adopted a simple, but catchy campaign name, goDigital, which left little need for an elaborate explanation of what the customer could expect. The primary target audience had not taken advantage of the wealth of online resources available at the library and were identified as District residents, ages 18-64 that live in wards 7 and 8 “Implementing (east of the river). Additionally, the working group conducted primary public relations research. The data from surveys helps to keep and focus groups informed how the our community project was developed.
invested in what we do. DC Public Library was especially mindful to keep the community engaged with the development of goDigital.”
The campaign theme (Watch. Read. Listen. Learn.) divides the campaign into four action verbs that resonate with customers. Customers are unaware of library jargon, but they know what they want to do when at the library. Therefore, the more than one hundred online resources were curated by the action verbs Watch, Read, Listen and Learn to help users quickly find what they want.
14 Against the Grain / June 2022
Implementing public relations helps to keep our community invested in what we do. DC Public Library was especially mindful to keep the community engaged with the development of goDigital. During our primary research, we collected data to better understand customer and staff knowledge about the digital resources offered at the DC Public Library. Three different types of surveys were administered — Voice of Patron, in-branch and staff.
Voice of Patron (VoP) Voice of Patron collects both survey and behavioral data. Typically Voice of Patron is used as a research component before website architecture is built; however, this time it was used to help shape the digital campaign. The survey was customized to digital users instead of overall website usage. Data analysis included crowdsourcing/weighing responses to make sense of qualitative data. The Voice of Patron survey had ten questions and was administered through the Library’s website. A pop-up screen displayed on random user screens asking if they would like to participate in a survey. In addition to the Library’s website, the survey code was hosted on OverDrive, Freegal, Zinio, LibGuides and the Library catalog. The survey was available for about eight weeks. We collected 1,303 responses.
In-Branch Eight library locations in the primary target audience areas were identified to host an in-branch survey. Six library volunteers administered a 10-question survey via iPads over a four-week period. We collected 100 surveys.
Staff DC Public Library staff were given the opportunity to share their ideas about the digital campaign. An electronic survey,
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