Wishful Promotion & Marketing!

Oh well here we go again - what I wish our library could get involverd with on Web 2.0.   I believe we should have a blog to cover all the functions that we offer.  The library staff (including myself) would be happy to keep this up-to-date.  We would need to work with our Marketing dept. as they seerm to be in charge of any form of advertising.  I say "seem" as we do so little and then only to our members, it really does nothing for the library and very little for the organisation. 
Anyhow enough complaining - on with how I would handle the new face of  the AIM Library.  The first thing would be to get an on-going  blog.  The first entry should be an explanation of who and what we are (as a specialist management library) and then I would love to see an interactive tour of the library showing our collection.  (As we have  no tour I have included a one from the web).
The blog will be linked to our webpage so the public can check the Institute's activities including training courses and our webpage back to the blog.  I also would like to see advertising of our forums, Meet the Author and presentations.  On our first blog it would be necessary to include a survey to make sure we are targeting the right section of the public.  As we have never set up a survey/questionnaire I have included a webpage to help set it up - click here.
I have the perfect scenario in my head but the hard part is getting it up and running. I am sure we can utilitse Web 2.0 applications to help the whole Institute by putting ourselves out in the public eye.  This might increase our membership especially to the middle managers who are the future of  the Australian Institute of Management.  By increasing the membership we would increase the use of the library ensuring the future all round.  Also it could be such fun setting it up and getting closer to our members and library users. 
Can our members use this application?  Yes, I am quite confident that all our members will, in time, enjoy the library blog and be able to contribute to it and help  keep it up-to-date  and interesting.
I have centered this fairytale around an on-going library blog but there are other applications that can be used such as a Wiki, Twitter, Facebook etc. It just takes time and future thinking but this has to come from the top of the organisation.
I have just found that we do have a Facebook page but it was rather dry and uninteresting and did not mention the library at all!  This should all be fun.

Australian Institute of Management Library

The AIM Library was started at the same time as the Australian Institute of  Management was formed in 1942 in Melbourne.  It became a very important part of AIM with members borrowing books and journals that were difficult to find elsewhere, as they focused on all aspects of management.  In the 4 moves that AIM has made up to date, the library has become biger and of course, more diverse, including videos,and  cassettes, now CDs and DVDs. Books and talking books seem to be our main borrowings but we are now moving into e-books.  I have worked in the library for 11 1/2 years and have seen many changes.  When I started one of my first projects was to catalogue the cassettes!  Now of course there are no cassettes and I catalogue the CDs.   We also handle requests for research and database enquiries.
The Institute has changed with more variety of  training being introduced as has the library with e-readers, blogs, facebook etc and all the modern technology for our fast moving society, but  in some ways I suppose I am a bit of a dinosaur as I still love the feel and smell of the printed book and believe (hope) it will always be around.  We are still considered an important special library for our members. 
We also have a bookshop which is open to the public in which we stock a wide scope of books covering all aspects of office/management/training etc.  So as librarians we are multi-skilled!
The library has compiled a history of the AIM library and I will post some photos of the early days later.  Keep tuned!