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Our Annual Report — You Gotta See This!

By on May 12, 2009

Here’s something that I am so eager to share with  you. Our 2008 Annual Report. After many ARscreen Our Annual Report You Gotta See This!years of producing annual reports — concepting, writing, photography, design, press checks — all for a limited run of a few thousand copies — this year my library is doing something I think no one else has done: a completely online experience. Check it out!

Now I’ m not talking about making a PDF of a printed document. No print was harmed in the making of this annual report. No trees, no ink — this is exclusively created in a web environment. (by the way, the URL is: ourstory.columbuslibrary.org.)

From a marketing perspective it is more than that. As we position it to staff, public, stakeholders we are saying:

It is green. No nonrenewable elements were used.

It is fiscally responsible. The whole thing cost us less than $100.

It is more impactful. Instead of a few thousand people having access to it, it can circle the globe. In fact, within 52 minutes of posting it on our Facebook page, I received a call from the State Library of New Jersey who had just read about it on the Facebook page of someone in Trenton, NJ!

It is innovative. Just as we are innovative in how we deliver library service.

It is all about discovery. Just as the library experience is a journey of discovery. 

So explore it. Enjoy it. Share it. And let me know what you think.

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Alison Circle About Alison Circle

Alison Circle is director of marketing communications for Columbus Metropolitan Library. Previously she was an Account Director at Jack Morton Worldwide, a global branding agency, and her primary client was Target Stores. Prior to that she was the National Marketing Director for Minnesota Public Radio and "A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor." She has advanced degrees in English and Fine Arts, and is a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant.

Comments

  1. Susan M. says:
    May 12, 2009 at 8:42 am

    It is also useless if I want to, say, print off the list of donors to see who is supporting the library, or reference the financials and compare them with last year. It’s terribly light on actual numbers. And at least in Firefox on my machine, once you start opening the donor level screens, it obscures the navigation back to the library story and financials. For those of us (yes, we do exist) who learn best by text, it’s annoying to have to take the time for videos when we could read the entire thing a lot faster. It’s a great marketing tool — I’ll give them that. It’s fun, it’s exciting, it’s different. However, it makes for a lousy annual report in terms of how I would want to use my library’s annual report. To me, this should be a supplement to an annual report and not a replacement.

  2. Nicole P. says:
    July 2, 2009 at 11:24 am

    This is fantastic…am am planning on sharing this with our board and senior management team.