Information from OCLC Member Update

A new OCLC membership report, Geek the Library: A Community Awareness Campaign, provides a comprehensive overview of the pilot community awareness campaign conducted in partnership with nearly 100 libraries in Georgia, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin.
The community awareness campaign, designed to highlight the value of public libraries and inform the public about critical library funding issues, positively changed community perceptions about libraries.   
 
The report findings indicate that the campaign not only grabs residents’ attention, but that it helps change public perceptions about library funding. The campaign gets people talking about libraries and helps libraries connect with their communities to engage in important funding conversations.

Exposure to the campaign, through advertising, public relations and other communication vehicles, led many residents to take positive action in support of public libraries. Many residents surveyed for the study said they had or would visit the library or library Web site, visit geekthelibrary.org, talk to family and friends about the library or about the campaign, and some were more likely to vote for a library referendum.