I hadn’t really realized before coming here how important publicity is on a campus. Students aren’t naturally equipped with a gene that tells them to visit the library when they have one type of question, the writing center when they have another type of question, the IT help desk when they have yet another type of question, and so on. Neither are faculty, for that matter. So getting ready for fall means thinking up how to explain to new students precisely what we do, and how to encourage returning students to remember us without boring them to death with the same old news. Similarly, new faculty need to know both what we can do for them, and what we can do for their students. And the faculty who’ve always been here still need reminders, preferably packaged in such a way that they think of new and creative uses for us. That’s a pretty tall order for a department without its own publicist! That’d be a tall order for a publicist, I imagine, though I’d really like to find out (hint, hint).
On our task list for this fall we have:
- New quiet level posters outfitted to represent our new and more realistic food and beverage policy (and with new level names for the 3rd and 4th floors… to be unveiled shortly)
- New “Survival Guide” for the freshmen (quick overview of services and resources, plus a humorous “Top 10 Reasons to Visit the Libe”
- Update the New Faculty Guide
- New poster to hang at various points around the library to advertise the Research/IT service
- New trading cards (being worked on in the next room at this very moment)
- New portable maps of the library to reflect updated equipment and such
- Planning for the beginning of the year picnic for faculty and academic staff (includes designing and making the invitational postcards)
- Planning for the international student orientation
- Planning for the new faculty orientation
- Planning for the new student Academic Fair
- Participating in the training of new writing tutors
- Plan for and train student workers who are going to staff the IT side of the Research/IT desk.
- Update our liaison pages to reflect tweaked liaison areas and new trading cards
- Update the poster by the Research/IT desk that lists our liaison areas
- Draft a beginning-of-the-year informational and (hopefully) inspirational email to send to each of our faculty members
- Read the college Common Reading book so that we can participate in that whole experience
- … and probably a whole host of things I’ve forgotten about…
Luckily most of these activities are interesting, and some are even really fun.