To better advocate for Quincy Public Library, we decided to ask patrons and library users if they would be willing to speak at City Council meetings in support of library programs.
Our goal was to have people speak about different services that were important to each of them. Admittedly, speaking in public to the City Council can be a daunting experience and some patrons with wonderful stories were reluctant to speak publicly. Nevertheless, the people who did step up were able to present compelling stories that had a positive impact on council members and the public in attendance at the meetings.
In order to talk at our City Council, speakers had to apply to City Hall in advance of the meeting. We worked with our speakers to schedule them for a period of several months so that we could keep Quincy Public Library visible over a long period of time to City Council.
Since our speakers had specific areas of interest, we knew the general content of their talks. But each speaker wrote and said their own words to describe their library experience.
Our city videotapes all the City Council meetings and airs them over a local access television channel. Knowing that they collected video at each meeting, we asked if they would be willing to share the videos with us.
Since each video contained the entire City Council meeting, a QPL staff member used video editing software to shorten the video to just the library patron and their talk. Captions were also added to each video. Our goal was to post the videos to QPL’s Facebook page to gain a wider audience.
The videos were viewed by hundreds of people, and QPL received many positive comments: “I love Quincy Public Library – it is one of the greatest treasures in our community!” “It is the library that keeps me sane. A refuge, a resource, a purposeful advisor….” “I love the library!” “The $100 I pay for a (non-resident) library card is a bargain!”
The videos helped to build awareness of library services and allowed City Council members to see the breadth of support for Quincy Public Library.
Our guest blogger today is Ruth Cuthbertson. Ruth is a Marketing & Events Librarian for Quincy Public Library. For more videos like Quincy Public Library's please visit the My Library Is Sharing Showcase.
