WOMM lives on!

About a month ago, we celebrated a very successful statewide Ask a
Librarian Day, thanks to your enthusiastic participation. We received
some great pictures from many of you showing how you celebrated the day,
and we’ve posted them to our Flickr account
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/35694759@N02/

That weekend, we had about a 75 percent increase in usage from the
previous weekend, and we know that your word-of-mouth marketing efforts
are what caused our numbers to jump.

So now that Ask a Librarian Day is over, we don’t have to bother with
word-of-mouth marketing anymore, right? WRONG! You all did a fantastic
job of spreading our message to the public, but word-of-mouth marketing
is most successful when it’s ongoing.

All staff at your library – from shelvers to your director – should be
able to say the following key messages about Ask a Librarian to users
they interact with.

1. If you ever need help when you’re not in our library, visit
askalibrarian.org (or find the link on our library’s website)

2. Ask a Librarian is a website where you can go to get your questions
answered by a real librarian.

3. Ask a Librarian is open until midnight Sunday through Thursday and
until 5 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

4. You can use Ask a Librarian for free.

5. If Ask a Librarian isn’t open for chat, you can always email your
question to us, and we’ll get back to you within 24 hours.

Our numbers soared because of your efforts on Ask a Librarian Day.
Imagine what we could do if we incorporated these messages into our job
every day!