CARLI PUBLIC RELATIONS COMMITTEE
August 17, 2005

The CARLI Public Relations Committee has a full year planned. Good PR and marketing are critical in the first year to ensure name recognition.  We will be involved in various branding activities, such as the logo and website design, as well as other activities to publicize CARLI and its various elements.  The main projects we will undertake are:

• General publicity activities for CARLI milestones, e.g., a press release announcing the new Executive Director when that person has been hired.

• Preconference at IACRL in Spring 2006.  Get to know CARLI.  We will plan a full day event including presentations, promotional items, and refreshments.  We hope one of the speakers will be the new Executive Director of CARLI

• Competition to rename ILLINET online.  We need a way to identify the 65 members of the former ILCSO who share an online catalog. Note: There is a proposal on the table from the IUAG OPAC Customization Task Force regarding a name change for ILLINET Online. If that proposal is accepted the PR Committee will not need to work on this task.

• Publications Award.  We need to review and revise the criteria and encourage people now to write articles about CARLI, or mention CARLI in articles related to CARLI services.  This will help promote name recognition and as we are in the formative stages of the new consortium, there are many opportunities for publishing.  We need to promote this so people are aware of it.  In addition to the certificate, a monetary award should be offered.  We’d recommend having the first award given near the end of 2007.

• CARLI poster session at ILA.  A proposal has already been submitted.  We will know in September if it has been accepted.

• CARLI promotional items.  Once a logo is chosen, we will select various general CARLI promotional items such as pens, notepads, post-it notes, mug, magnets, etc.  The visibility of these items will promote name recognition.

• CARLI brochure.  We need to design a general brochure, defining CARLI, its services and benefits.

• CARLI Birthday Party.  We think a birthday party at ALA in June 2006 would be a good way to celebrate the end of the first year of CARLI.  We launched it at a reception at ALA and this would signal the end of the transition year.

• CARLI booth. We think a CARLI booth at ALA in June 2006 would be a good way to promote CARLI. The ILCSO 25th anniversary booth at ALA 2005 was a big success and helped raise awareness of ILCSO’s 25th anniversary.

This is a very healthy list of projects and we will undoubtedly need help to complete these.  We plan to set up Task Forces to assist with some of these and will ask the Board to put out a call for volunteers once we have determined how many task forces and members we need. 

We have also included an estimated budget for these projects  Because this is the first year of CARLI, we determined that start up costs would be higher.  We have nothing with “CARLI” or the yet to be designed logo.  A prime way to promote a business or, in our case, a consortium, is to get the name out on items that people use daily.  We have listed five suggested items that could be used for this purpose.  It is possible we could get a cheaper price on some of these because of the quantity but these estimated costs form a baseline.  The budget also includes an estimate for a brochure which will also assist in promotion.  In addition, the CARLI pre-conference and the one year birthday party and ALA Booth are also included.  These estimates are based on previous events and may actually be higher or lower depending on costs associated with the location.