Putting the Audience in Charge of the Message: Assessment of Student-Generated Public Relations Campaigns in an Academic Library

Abstract

This article analyzes the effectiveness of an academic library’s public relations (PR) strategies designed to promote librarians and library services to students. One of the core issues librarians face is that many students do not necessarily know what services the library offers or what librarians do and how they can help. To remedy this problem, librarians at the University of Florida collaborated with students from a PR class to devise strategies to better promote the services offered by the libraries as well as the libraries’ subject specialists. Following this collaboration, the group implemented some of the recommended marketing strategies and assessed whether these methods resonated with students and/or changed their perceptions of librarians and libraries. Using a mixed methods approach, the team conducted surveys and focus groups with the aim to better understand the effectiveness of student-generated library marketing and outreach strategies. This assessment will inform library marketing best practices and ensure that implemented strategies work by increasing student awareness of library services and subject librarians.

Keywords

• Assessment
• library marketing
• academic libraries
• public relations
• student collaborations