[Eg-oversight-board] Increasing Evergreen's visibility in the larger library community

[Chauncey Montgomery]

I often hear non-technical people ask how the can contribute to the 
Evergreen community. Volunteering to assist at a booth, etc., would be a 
perfect opportunity for such folk. I think it is a great idea.
CM

On 02/17/2015 03:51 PM, Kathy Lussier wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I have a proposal I would like to submit to the EOB for discussion at
> this week's meeting.
>
> During a recent meeting of the MassLNC partners, we were discussing ways
> to increase Evergreen's visibility at library conferences. We have been
> very happy with Evergreen and with the way it has grown since we first
> began looking at it as an ILS, and we want to share the good news with
> the rest of the library community.
>
> Proprietary ILS vendors are highly visible at conferences with booths in
> the exhibit hall as well as meetings (or maybe breakfasts or lunches)
> where they showcase their products for users and for potential new
> users. I think we often rely on Equinox to do this work for us at
> conferences, and they do an excellent job of getting the word out about
> Evergreen. However, they are just one piece of a much larger community,
> and they are also highlighting other software (Koha, FulfILLment) in
> addition to Evergreen. The MassLNC partners would like to see a
> community-driven effort to make Evergreen more visible at some of our
> larger library conferences (e.g. American Library Association, Canadian
> Library Association, Public Library Association, etc.).
>
> With this in mind, I would like to propose that the Board 1) establish a
> public relations committee that is primarily responsible for increasing
> the visibility of Evergreen in the library community and 2) start a
> targeted fundraising effort to raise money specifically for those PR
> activities. This effort would fall under the EOB's stated goal to
> "support and facilitate the growth of the international community of
> Evergreen users."
>
> To start us off, C/W MARS, MVLC and NOBLE have offered to put forward
> funds to pay for a table in the exhibit hall at the upcoming ALA annual
> conference in San Francisco. C/W MARS, NOBLE and MassLNC also have a few
> staff members who will be attending the conference and can help staff
> the table, but we would need other volunteers from the community to help
> out . There will be other expenses that will need to be covered
> (signage, handouts, maybe some giveaways), but I think we could keep the
> costs low enough to be covered by fundraising.
>
> Let me know what you think.
>
> My full proposal is below.
>
> PUBLIC RELATIONS PROPOSAL
>
> - This proposal is for the Evergreen Oversight Board to:
>     1. establish a fund to be used for increasing the visibility of
> Evergreen in the larger library community;
>     2. and form a Public Relations Committee charged with organizing the
> PR activities for which those funds will be used.
> - The PR Committee will comprise up to six members of the Evergreen
> community, at least one of whom should be a member of the Evergreen
> Oversight Board.
> - The EOB will be responsible for appointing volunteers to the committee.
> - The tasks of the committee will include, but not be limited to,
> establishing a presence at library conferences by renting and staffing
> space in the exhibit hall, organizing Evergreen users meetings, and/or
> encouraging presentations from Evergreen community members; issuing
> press releases on noteworthy happenings in the Evergreen community; and
> raising funds for PR activities.
> - Any activities that require the expenditure of funds must be approved
> by the EOB.
> - The committee must provide regular reports to the EOB by writing to
> the mailing list.
>