I’ve just been having a conversation with our Special Collections Librarian here at Massey about ways we can promote our special collections. If we think about our main target market (which realistically is history academics and postgrads) then its quite small, but the value and impact they can derive from t the collection is quite high. How then do we get the message out? Some ways we thought of were:
- inviting academics and postgrads in to see the collections
- promoting new acquisitions
- using imagery from beautiful or quirky items in social media
- making sure our staff know about the collections and how to access them, so they can promote them in face to face interactions
I’d be interested to know in what other libraries have done, and what has worked and what doesn’t!
Marketing Matters for Librarians 
Vanderbilt University Libraries have a special collection.They had students create an exhibition on propaganda, sharing pieces on Twitter and encourage exhibition attendance. More information can be found on <a href="http://leadinglinespod.com/episodes/episode-36melissa-mallon/"this podcast at about the 17-19 minute mark.
That sounds fantastic – thank you for sharing this Sally 🙂
Kia ora Alison,
North Auckland Research Centre at Takapuna Library uses Facebook to promote special collection heritage photos using the #ThrowbackThursday tag. Engagement is good and its really well received
Other thoughts:
– Work with other library promotions eg: Kupu o te wiki – tie in the theme for the week with items in one of the special collections and promote both at same time (Bagnall Collection came to mind)
– Work with iwi / māori communities to promote taonga in special collections that may be of interest
– Develop an award / scholarship / competition that requires the use of a special collection (or part thereof) – could be useful to promote to secondary schools in specific subject areas
– If the Lauris Edmond Collection is accessible – select a poetry item to develop a poetry slam around
Tracy
Great ideas thank you Tracy!