Information Scotland The Journal of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals in Scotland ISSN 1743-5471 Issue contents | Journal contents | About the online edition of the journal February 2007 Volume 5(1)

Marketing

Screening your messages

Neil Wishart describes his company’s work in installing screens in libraries and setting up web TV to help them promote their services to the public.

Prime Space TV is a highly engaging Community Television network that has now been installed in six library authorities across Scotland. Four authorities; East Renfrewshire, Inverclyde, North Lanarkshire and West Dunbartonshire took part in a very successful pilot in the summer of 2006. Extensive research during the pilot validated the network and its impact with the general public.

Subsequently networks have been launched in two further authorities, Stirling and Perth and Kinross and as we were going to print, Prime Space has announced that another six authorities will go live in the next two months.

The system is provided to the library free of charge with only minor costs for power and data being incurred. The company sources a range of relevant and interesting public information from local and national government to display on the screen and has recently added content giving the public access to educational and career opportunities.

National and local news, weather and sports headlines are also displayed on screen and these have proven very popular with the general public. A visitor to Dumbarton library said: “I think the news is great. Being in college I don’t get much chance to see the news.”

The system also comes into its own as a public communication and marketing platform for promoting the value of public library services. Displays are bright and eye catching and can be used to transmit static messages, animations and even full video.

Library authorities that have installed the system have quickly grasped the potential for promoting their services. This is clearly important as at the start of the pilot, a resident of Clydebank stated: “I think the local council is very bad at marketing themselves. The library runs tremendous courses and programmes and where do you hear about them?”

The library authority can choose to run content across all screens in its area, but content can also be scheduled to run on individual screens allowing for very local messages to be displayed.

Until now, Prime Space TV screens have provided a platform for communicating with library visitors. Two new initiatives are going to have a major impact on how libraries can market themselves outside their buildings to the general public at large.

East Renfrewshire Council has become the first authority in Scotland to install Prime Space TV screens in other leisure sites. Recent installations into a local sports centre, theatre and leisure pool will allow East Renfrewshire libraries to cross market themselves with other services, reaching many potential new library users in a wider arena.
As well as providing screens in other buildings, Prime Space TV has just launched a local Web TV platform. All information that is displayed on screen is also now displayed on the web channel for that local area.

www.eastrenfrewshire.tv enables East Renfrewshire libraries and other on screen advertisers to get their messages out to the public at large in a new way. There are options to make content available for podcasting and RSS which will help engage libraries’ hard to reach youth and young professional markets.

Liz McGettigan, Library and Information Services Manager at East Renfrewshire, where the ’Look@Libraries’ promotional festival took place recently, commented: “Previously people depended on print such as bookmarks, brochures and leaflets but nowadays people want fast, on-the-go information and are attracted to visual messages. Information and key messages come across very clearly through the use of Prime Space TV. It’s certainly key to our marketing strategy and we couldn’t have done it on our own.”

Here at Prime Space TV, we will continue to develop and integrate market leading digital technologies. We want to help ensure that our public library partners and other host services can compete for the public’s attention with increasingly sophisticated commercial organisations.

Neil Wishart is Director of Prime Space TV. Further information at; +441355 813 600. Prime Space TV is a Platinum Sponsor of the CILIP in Scotland Annual Conference and you can see the service in action at this year's conference at Peebles Hotel Hydro, 11-13 June.

Information Scotland Vol. 5(1) February 2007

Information Scotland is delivered online by the SAPIENS electronic publishing service based at the Centre for Digital Library Research. SLAINTE (Scottish libraries across the Internet) offers further information about librarianship and information management in Scotland.