Hi Ric,

I wrote about GPO's "As Easy As FDL" campaign back in May. Overall, I liked the concept though I wrote about a few concerns about execution.

When the plan was put out in May, you asked for feedback on the plan. Did you get any?

In any event, speaking personally, I think it's a good thing that GPO is taking a lead on this issue. Now depository libraries have to do their part - provide feedback on the plan, work with the plan and expand their own visibility in both the online and real life realms. Knowing that it's "As Easy as FDL" won't be good if people can't find their local depository.

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"And besides all that, what we need is a decentralized, distributed system of depositing electronic files to local libraries willing to host them." -- Daniel Cornwall, tipping his hat to Cato the Elder for the original quote.

GPO received 26 survey responses to the initial survey, as well as verbal feedback at library events such as ALA and AALL. All were generally supportive of the plan. A number of respondents did say they would not be able to help with assessing the success of the new campaign. That is integral to not only determining if these efforts achieve the desired result but also as justification for marketing efforts in the future. Since the largest piece of this effort is providing depositories with tools and tips they can use to promote their services, we need a strong line of communication open between GPO and depository libraries to analyze the program's success.

In the coming weeks, GPO will make the promotional items described in the plan available on the FDLP Desktop for free ordering by depositories. It is our hope that depositories will use the promotional products with the strategies that we provided in the plan. We are also about to release our first FDLP promotional video, which depositories can grab from the desktop and post to their web site and disseminate if they wish. For our part, we are now looking into reaching out to Federal agencies and congressional offices to help increase awareness. Additionally, we are looking at promotional methods by which we can reach the general public, such as public service announcements.

We welcome any and all feedback on the plan and the campaign, as we want this to be as beneficial and successful as possible.

I am deeply sorry to hear you only got 26 survey responses out of 1,249 libraries. That works out to a 2% response rate. Charitably we can say that rate of 98% of non-response is related to hard-working librarians forced to wear many hats in addition to that of government information specialist.

Any thoughts or statistics on what response rates are to optional GPO surveys? As opposed to the biennial survey which does get high response rates.

And if your average response rates are consistently in the 2-5% range, do you ever get depressed over the state of GPO - Depository dialog? I know I'm starting to.

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"And besides all that, what we need is a decentralized, distributed system of depositing electronic files to local libraries willing to host them." -- Daniel Cornwall, tipping his hat to Cato the Elder for the original quote.

Hi Ric. thanks so much for posting about this. I believe that it's vital that citizens know about the services and collections that their local libraries have to offer them. I'm all for increased visibility of libraries and think that many of the suggestions in the marketing plan would be helpful for all libraries to pursue (although perhaps some of the suggestions would be better done by the library as a whole rather than by the FDL specifically). I'd like to add a few things that came to mind as I was reading the marketing plan.

Documents are used to Get Things Done (GTD). While posters, videos and table tents are fine as far as they go, those types of promotional items only get at the message that FDLs are out there, NOT why they're important, and only get to the users who are already IN the library.

Your communication objectives on p.3 are all good (increase awareness of FDLP/FDL's etc); but the overarching goals are more traffic to libraries and more use of depository collections right? If *that's* the goal of the campaign, then what I'd like to see happen is to highlight FDL collections and services at the point of use or the point of need. The Web makes that imminently possible. And hitting users at the point of need will hit all of your objectives out of the park so to speak.

So here are some suggestions that I'd like to see GPO do, in collaboration with depository librarians. To get at the point of need, we (meaning GPO and libraries) need to do the following. Some things I'm assuming will be the GPO's domain, some will be for FDLs and some should be done by both:

• open up our catalogs to search engines -- of course this assumes that digital content is freely accessible in open standards and formats right? ;-);
• digitize collections and make them freely accessible online in open formats with harvestable metadata and open APIs;
• add links to collections and important documents in wikipedia articles (case in point: the Kerner Commission could and should have an external link to the Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders aka the Kerner Report but its only been digitized by UMich and not available to the general public in digital format);
• blog about the questions we get and the answers we give (try a google search for US military spending 1942 and see the first hit for a good reason to blog Q&As);
• participate in and create new social networks (glad you mentioned this one!). This is not just about creating facebook accounts. Social networks means bringing citizens and activist groups into the process of building collections and providing access. The goal of social networks is to bring citizens' voices into the community. GPO and FDLs can then respond to those voices and needs in order to support the democratic process. This is a social network.

All of these things will increase awareness of the GPO and depository libraries well beyond posters, PSAs and slogans. I believe we are in agreement on the objectives and for that I commend the GPO for starting this conversation.