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Emerald Group Publishing Ltd

The IFLA Section on Management and Marketing in collaboration with Emerald is pleased to announce the winners of the 10th IFLA International Marketing Award for 2012.

First place

was awarded to Tsinghua University Library, Beijing, China, represented by Yang Yi, Deputy Director, and Han Lifeng and Wang Yuan, Reference Librarians. The project team, composed of professional librarians and students, created a low-cost series of five short, entertaining videos that feature two undergraduates who meet in the library. Their interactions not only tell the humorous, light and warm story of "Falling in Love with the Library" but also improve library brand awareness and library literacy and thus help students, especially freshmen, make optimal use of library services and fully benefit from them.  The videos are offered in two versions, one with Chinese and one with English subtitles.  A web-based book-shelf matching game is also offered. The first-place winner receives airfare, lodging, and registration for the 2012 IFLA General Conference and Assembly to be held this year in Helsinki, Finland, and a cash award of $1,000 (U.S.) to further the marketing efforts of the library.

Second place

was awarded to the University of Waterloo Library, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, represented by Nancy Collins, Communications and Liaison Librarian, and Esther Millar, Coordinator, Library Communications and Web Management. The library launched a buttons campaign featuring 13 creative button designs to capture the visual identity of the six library locations available to students, faculty and staff. The buttons were also used on bookmarks, posters, brochures, facebook and library signage as an eye-catching branding device. The library distributed over 23,000 buttons, which quickly became collector’s items during the campaign.

Third place

was awarded to the Kosteneevo Rural Library, Yelabuga District, Republic Tatarstan, Russia for the project "The Whole Village Reads", represented by Guzjal Erkaeva. The project began with a book festival, followed by a year-long calendar of programs, competitions, and other activities geared to diverse audiences, from children to elderly men. The goal was to raise interest in the library and make it the "informational, intellectual, and spiritual center" of the small rural village with 558 inhabitants. The program received excellent press coverage and resulted in greatly increased use of the library and recognition of the librarian from the Tatarstan government.

More details about these winning campaigns are available from Nancy E. Gwinn, gwinnN@si.edu, Information Coordinator for the jury.

The first place winner will be announced officially at the IFLA press conference, time and place to be announced. Second and third place winners will be announced also and awarded with distinctions.

Criteria and Applications

For this 10th award, applications were available on the IFLA Web. Altogether there were 39 applicants from 20 countries including Australia, Canada, Chile, China, India, South Korea, Lithuania, Russia, Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, USA, and Zimbabwe. 

Any library, agency, or association in the world that promotes library service was eligible to receive the award. The IFLA International Marketing Award honors organizations that implement creative, results-oriented marketing projects or campaigns.

Objectives of the Award

  • Reward the best library marketing project worldwide each year
  • Encourage marketing in libraries
  • Give libraries the opportunity to share marketing experiences

This year’s applicants were carefully judged on the following

  1. Strategic approach to marketing;
  2. Creativity, originality, innovation and social value;
  3. Potential for generating widespread public visibility and support for libraries;
  4. Effectiveness of communication;
  5. Commitment to ongoing marketing activities.
  6. Expression of emotion, sustainability and ethical aspects.

The Jury revised the criteria to facilitate increased understanding of marketing, and participation by a broader range of countries. A new goal that was reached was to recognize marketing efforts by developing countries with fewer resources.

For more information contact the following representatives of the Jury of the IFLA International Marketing Award:

About Emerald

Emerald Group Publishing Limited is a leading independent publisher of global research with impact in business, society, public policy and education. With over 40 years’ publishing experience, Emerald manages a portfolio of over 280 journals, more than 2,000 books and book series volumes, as well as an extensive range of online products and services.

Emerald is both COUNTER 3 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation.

EMERALD QUOTE

Eileen Breen, Senior Publisher at Emerald, comments:

Congratulations to this year’s worthy winners of the IFLA International Marketing Awards. It is great to see such creativity and passion channelled towards raising awareness of the library and information services. Emerald works very closely with information professionals around the world to promote literacy. Our special partnership with IFLA aims to do just that and year after year the IFLA International Marketing Awards prove inspirational to the whole information community.