Spectrum PR Column
September 1996
Delivering the Message - From Indianapolis To The Home Office
Carol Bredemeyer, Salmon P. Chase College of Law Library, Northern Kentucky University (Highland Heights, KY).
AALL Spectrum, Volume 1 No. 1 September 1996, p. 26.
By the time you read this, if you attended the AALL Annual Meeting in Indianapolis, you will have been home for over a month. Have you made the most of the public relations opportunities since then? How have you used the information you brought home in your work? If you paid your own way, have you been able to justify to your employer that it might be worthwhile for them to pay for your attendance next year?
First, what kinds of information did you bring home? Did you learn something to make your computer lab or LEXIS/WESTLAW training work better? Did you get someone’s name who can solve a problem or serve as a consultant? Sometimes telling your boss that "‘X’ library does it this way" gives more credibility to an idea. Did you save money by ordering books or subscriptions at a convention discount? If you placed a large order, you may have saved the cost of your registration. In an organization where the bottom line is an important operational factor, never pass up an opportunity to show how you saved money.
Next, how best to present the information to your organization. Will you get better results in a staff meeting or on a one-to-one basis? In the library or the boss’ office? All at once or in small pieces? Did you meet a law school classmate of one of your attorneys or judges who asked you to extend their regards? Opportunity awaits!
Then there are all those freebies you picked up in the Exhibit Hall. Will an attorney or faculty member who is a heavy computer user appreciate that free copy of legal.online? Will you save the pens and post-it notes for National Library Week give-aways or put them out on your tables and counters for library users who never come prepared? Would someone in your organization be ecstatic to have a red plastic wind-up crab or Shepards slinky to play with on a stressful day?
Last, but certainly not least, librarians from Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, Indiana University, and Georgetown University have AALL Public Relations Awards to display.
This column has posed lots of questions. There are no right or wrong answers. Only you know how to answer them for your organization. It’s still not too late to take advantage of the opportunities to use your new found information. The worst thing you can do when you return from a conference is nothing.
P.S. If you have any success stories you’d like to share, please send them to me and I’ll try to use them in future columns.
Last Updated: January 20, 2003
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