According to govdoc-l poster Ania Lasota, the Paul Meek Library had a terrific 50th anniversary as a Federal Depository Library:

This week we have celebrated 50th Anniversary of our depository status.  We did great: we had coverage by a local radio station, and also  Jackson, local and college paper. We ran information about the docs anniversary on the web, and the campus main electronic marquee. The staff put together a nice display of government documents and posters,  and we had a great reception - which went really well!  Our guests included Congressman and Mrs. John Tanner, Mayor, Chancellor, and others.  As an extra enticement for students to attend our event, we had a bunch of door prizes which local businesses graciously donated to us.

Our hats are off to Ania and others at the Paul Meek Library who did such a terrific job ensuring visibilty for their event!

It looks like it impressed Rep. Tanner as well who is reportedly planning to return to the library to give a lecture.

As you should know by now, Free Government Information maintains a listing of video spots promoting government documents and government information. Most of these videos are available at YouTube and the Capitol Hill Broadcasting Network.

But we recognize that a number of organizations ban "commercial/consumer video" sites like YouTube. So I have posted the videos on the list that I personally created over at the Internet Archive, which most filters seem to treat as an educational site and often left unblocked:

• Air Force at Your Library (3 min) - US Air Force documents and other resources set to the official Air Force Song.
• Army at Your Library (1 min) - Selection of Army resources set to Army Song.
• Best Titles Ever! The Video - 13 titles from FGI's Best Titles Ever page set to electronic music.
• Documents on Parade: Criminal Edition - Web sites and Dept of Justice documents set to music familiar to boomers.
• FDLP - The Final Frontier (Approx 2 min) - Space. The final frontier. Available at your Federal Depository Library since the dawn of the space age. Music by Victor Stellar courtesy of Podsafe Audio. 
• Marines Get Around! (approximately 1 min, posted 12/24/2006) - Roundup of documents showing how active Marines have been in our nation's history.
• Navy at Your Library (39 seconds) - Sampling of Navy documents and web sites set to music.
• Shield of Freedom (2 min, posted 12/30/2006) - USCG documents set to the tune Coast Guard's Chief Petty Officers March.

Placing these videos in the Internet Archive has another virtue. They can be downloaded, burned onto CD/DVD, remixed, whatever. These videos are under a noncommerical Creative Commons license, so free to use them in your own promotional materials. And if you create your own videos, we at FGI encourage you to upload them to the Internet Archive now that the IA has simplified the upload process. If you need a walkthrough or have other questions, just drop me a line at dnlcornwall AT alaska DOT net or leave a message here in comments.

The book discussed below doesn't have much to do with government information, but I think it can be a powerful guide to those of us who our passionate about the cause of freely available government information.

Crossposted from Alaskan Librarian:

I feel fortunate that my library participates in a downloadable audiobook project called Listen Alaska through Overdrive, inc. It's given me the chance to do try out books on my mp3 player that I might not have picked up to read but turned out to be great books.

Such is the case with Made to stick : why some ideas some ideas survive and others die by Chip and Dan Heath. I downloaded the audiobook version from Listen Alaska, and was so impressed I ordered the paper copy for my library. If you're a librarian, you should too. Then read it. You can read the introduction right now by going to the companion web site at http://www.madetostick.com/.

Why do I think this book should be read by every librarian? Because the authors carefully lay out the elements needed to convey a compelling message and provide many examples of messages that work. Many well-intentioned people tell us librarians to "tell our stories." The Heath brothers show us HOW to tell our stories. Consultants tell libraries it is important to have a mission statement, but the Heath brothers demonstrate how to generate a "core value" that can actually guide decision making.

The authors start the book with a common and unforgettable urban legend and dissect the "stickiness" aspects that keep the legend in circulation. They suggest that every successful message has characteristics that spell out SUCES:

Simple
Unexpected
Credible
Emotions
Stories

The rest of the book examines how to make messages simple, unexpected, credible, have emotional content and how to tell stories. This is both simpler and more complex than it sounds. The books messages are made clearer by frequent "message clinics" where the brothers provide several ways of getting a message across and let the choose the one that seems most compelling.

Authors Chip and Dan Heath are the first to tell you that this isn't a cookbook. It's not a matter of following SUCES and having success every time. But they and I say that if you do put these elements into your messages, they'll have a fighting chance of being heard and remembered.

One of the things I regret about Library school is that there were no courses in communication or public relations. This is a particularly glaring deficiency because as a group librarians tend to be introverted and self-effacing. We don't have much experience in getting our stories out and tend to lapse into jargon and statistics, two things guaranteed to lose our audience. Made to Stick could help turn that around and make us effective advocates for our libraries and other causes in our lives.

I'm to announce that Sarah Gewirtz, Reference/Government Documents Librarian at the Alcuin Library of St. John's University/College of St. Benedict has produced the first documents promotional video I'm aware of that I didn't put together.

Sarah's first video is "You and Your USA", a walk through civics pamphlets given to our soldiers and sailors in the 1950s. With Sarah's permission, I've uploaded the video to YouTube and the Capitol Hill Broadcasting Network.

Sarah's video and all the others we are aware of can be found on our videos page, along with links to the resources you need to produce your own documents promotion videos.

This week we've updated our Audio and Videos page to include three new videos and a link to an University of Minnesota tutorial on creating streaming media.

The latest video posted is one of mine and it highlights Army resources in depository libraries:

Remember, this registration page is for YOUR videos and audio spots as well. If you are creating govdocs promotional materials, PSAs, etc that others can use, let us know. Either post the link to comments on the videos page, or send the link to admin AT freegovinfo.info.

We're aiming to update the page once a week on weekends, and it would be great to include links to your govdoc related content.

Below is an ad made for the Fulton County Public Library. Watch this 39 second clip and then read on.

This video actually made me want to play it over and over again because the music had a good beat and because I wanted to see all the book covers and service types flash by again. It's kinetic yet informative. So far it's been viewed 1,737 times and I don't think it's been all by librarians.

My only criticism of the video is that it should have faded to both the name of the library AND its URL so people could immediately check out their site. But that is a petty criticism of something very engaging.

What's stopping us government information specialists from putting something like this together? Other than time and a fear of movie making software that comes with nearly every computer.

What say you to changing that? If you're intrigued by the video above and either have video experience or want to see this as a learning opportunity, please get in touch with me. Either in comments below or by e-mailing dnlcornwall AT alaska.net. I've got a few storyboard ideas and a digital camera that I could use to take pictures of good looking documents. And almost anyone can take screenshots of good gov't web sites.

Once it's on YouTube or some other video site, we could start trying to push onto local media as a PSA or maybe beg the Ad Council or someone for air time.

You don't have to be a docs librarian to work on this project idea, just someone interested in web/library 2.0 ideas and software.

Of course, if someone else has already made a youth oriented govdocs ad, would you send us a link to the video?

And why the marketing entries lately? Because one tactic in getting perpetual no-fee access to fully functional government information is making our citizens know that the information is out there and is worth having and fighting for.

A tip of the FGI hat to Stephen Abram and SJRLC Connections for flagging this video.