I’m here today to tell you about North Carolina State University Library’s Image Discovery Week.
It was a collaboration between Harrye B. Lyons Design Library
and the Special Collections Research Center at DH Hill, the main library on campus. It took place about in September, 2010.
Image Discovery Week actually began as Image Awareness Week in the spring of 2009. It was hosted solely by the Design Library to promote ARTstor, CAMIO, and Oxford Art Online in addition to our in-house Design Library Image Collection and image-related services. Our audience was faculty, staff, and students in the College of Design.
During the course of the week, we offered patrons bookmarks with links to image collections on the reverse,
an informational brochure,
one-on-one instruction from library staff, and the chance to play with Viewmasters!
We soon discovered that patrons were confused by the “Image Awareness” moniker. They thought referred to one’s choice of clothing, accessories, hairstyle, etc.
We made the mistake of offering cookies to lure in patrons. In addition to baking the cookies, we also spent part of our mornings packaging them in glassine bags. Yes, they were a big hit and it got people into the library, but I, in no way, see myself baking 12 dozen cookies in a week ever again.
To create greater visibility for Image Discovery Week and to draw attention to all image collections belonging to NCSU Libraries, we decided to collaborate with staff at the SCRC for the fall semester of 2010.
To give you a sense of our holdings beyond the Design Library Image Collection, those administered by the SCRC include the University Archives Photograph Collection, Built Heritage of North Carolina, Green n’ Growing , BW Wells Lantern Slides and Photographs of the Well’s Savannah, Living Off the Land and Open Content Alliance Digitized Books. That’s nearly 92,000 digital images.
We also decided to incorporate the Dosch DVDs with 2D and 3D digital objects and backgrounds and textures. We included books with CDs containing pattern and stock images, like those published by Agile Rabbit, as well.
This time we decided to use more than just posters to announce the event. We placed an advertisement in the art box on the homepage for NCSU Libraries and…
and on the e-boards located in the College of Design, at the main library and the 3 other branch libraries on campus.
The bookmarks were re-designed
and the brochures were updated with information on the SCRC’s collections. We also included QR (Quick Response) codes on the posters and the brochure so those with smart phones could link directly to various library webpages,
including one made specifically for Image Discovery Week which reiterates and expands upon the information contained in the brochure.
The bookmarks and brochures were available at the Design Library and at the SCRC Reading Room and at the reference desk in the Learning Commons at the main library.Since hunger and sugar always seem to motivate students, as you can see, we replaced the cookies with a bowl of candy.
We also put both a Mac and PC laptop at the circulation desk at the Design Library and at the SCRC, to give patrons the opportunity to peruse the image-related sites.
Thanks to Image Discovery Week, the Design Library decided to offer brochures and bookmarks on a year round basis. It has been rewarding to see the look on students’ and faculty members’ faces when they realize the wealth of digital images that is readily available to them 24 hours a day. In the future, we will continue to look for new and innovative ways to reach the faculty, staff and students at NCSU.
