Submitted by Karla Block
Bio-Medical Library, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
An Open House Point of View
Many libraries host events to increase their visibility and exposure to patrons. What happens when the event is unsuccessful? We found out after the Bio-Medical Library hosted a new faculty reception in September 2004. With less than a handful of attendees, the results were disappointing. We were committed to hosting a fall event and knew we needed to change our point of view.
A small committee began planning an open house for October 2005. The event was a resounding success, based on several factors:
Evaluation of the unsuccessful reception to learn what we needed to change.
A day-long open house format that reached a wider audience.
Broader participation by library staff, who led tours, offered classes, conducted consultations, and staffed informational tables.
Extensive promotion and improved partnerships with the communications offices from both the Academic Health Center and the University Libraries.
Metrics (such as gate counts) to help measure our success.
We hosted one successful open house, but could we do it again? We further refined our point of view when planning our 2006 open house, to include:
Shortening the time and centralizing activities into one large room.
Partnering with the Veterinary Medical Library and the Wangensteen Historical Library to make it a Health Sciences Libraries event.
Enhanced promotion efforts including e-mail invitations and eye-catching skull balloons (in keeping with our skeleton theme) placed throughout the Academic Health Center.
Enhanced metrics, including asking door prize registrants how they heard about the event (many people mentioned the skull balloons!)
At the time of our poster presentation at the annual conference in Louisville, our 2006 Open House was two weeks in the future. We’re happy to report that it was another successful event!
