Abstract | The Creative Sketch | Slideshow | Custom Posters

Poster Session

CLA 108th Annual Conference, Sacramento, November 11-13, 2006
CARL 11th Conference, Asilomar, April 20-23, 2006

Melissa Browne, Sheila Cunningham, Bernadette Swanson
Shields Library, UC Davis

Abstract

Library Instruction Services is a new department with four full-time instruction librarians, two staff members and two part-time student assistants with graphics expertise. It is our responsibility to provide library outreach to a campus population of approximately 30,000 students. We recently launched a multi-pronged visual media campaign to bring our core message (help desks, workshops, answers) to students in their environment. This poster session showcases our collaborative approach to outreach on a minimal budget, and includes examples from our portfolio.

In Fall 2004, Library Instruction Services developed content for two posters that appeared on 39 community buses frequented by UC Davis students. The project included personnel from three separate library departments and support from the library administration. Our continued foray into visual media outreach involves time and budgetary constraints and technical hurdles. Over the past year and a half, the department has systematized its approach as the library outreach campaign has expanded to include billboards, motion video ads and mini movies, instruction posters and handouts.

The department uses Macromedia's Captivate for its motion video ads and mini movies, and Adobe Creative Suite 2 (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign) for billboards, signs and posters. It purchases photos from iStockPhoto, www.istockphoto.com , a fee-based web resource. The department has access to a color plotter as well as a color laser printer.

The Creative Sketch

Medium
What will the finished outreach product be?

Audience
Who is our audience?
What are their needs?
What do they think?

Inspiration
What catches our attention?
What catches the attention of our audience?

Brainstorm
What are we advertising/promoting?
What would we like our audience to think?
What are the ideas we would like to convey?

Message
What is the central idea we want our audience to know?
What do we want them to think?

Environment
Where will our audience experience this outreach product?

Parameters - What are our creative guidelines?
Production - Who will create the product?
Tools - How will the product be created?

Slideshow

The following links highlight our library outreach projects and include images from the poster session held on Aprill 22, 2006.

• Poster Series I Slideshow (8 slides)
• Poster Series II Slideshow (4 slides)
  

Custom Posters

A selection of the posters have been prepared as blank templates for download for use by interested libraries or educational institutions.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.