Gates Gives $5 Million to OCLC To Build Library Awareness, Support

Norman Oder -- Library Journal, 4/14/2009

• Campaign aims to enhance latent public support
• Will give libraries new tools from ads to online to grassroots action
• Pilot projects to begin in Georgia and Iowa

Aiming to build on previous research on latent public support for libraries, and to offer libraries a hand at a time when they’re both ever more useful and stressed, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation today announced a $5 million grant to the OCLC library cooperative to develop a public information campaign to boost library support.

Beginning in June, OCLC will pilot the campaign for six months in select areas of Georgia and Iowa, as well as in another six to 12 local communities elsewhere, gauging levels of library support both before and after the campaign. The materials tested—including advertising, direct marketing, online engagement, public relations, and grassroots community initiatives—will be made available to the library community at large next year.

Cathy De Rosa, global vice president of marketing for OCLC, told LJ that one major component of the project will be the creation of materials and programs, while the other will be testing the programs.

Why Georgia and Iowa? De Rosa cited the need for a “good cross-section of geography, funding structures, economic conditions, and library leadership." State library leaders are working with OCLC, and subsets of libraries will be chosen to “hub the study.”

Project genesis
“The need for increased library funding is not new,” De Rosa said, noting that OCLC began speaking with Gates about research and potential action back in 2005. The result: a $1.3 million grant in 2006 to do qualitative and quantitative work aiming to learn more about funding dynamics. The result was a report released last year, From Awareness to Funding: A Study of Library Support in America. “This is the logical extension,” De Rosa said, of the new grant.

The report indicated that the population could be segmented into those more and less likely to support libraries. Though De Rosa noted that “probable supporters” are the most important segment to target, even “super supporters” have not necessarily been asked to increase support significantly.

Leo Burnett USA, a Chicago-based marketing communications agency that conducted the market research in 2007, will help OCLC design and run the community support campaigns in Georgia and Iowa.

Gates support
“There has never been a more important time to highlight the importance of and support the services provided by public libraries,” said Jill Nishi, deputy director of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s U.S. Libraries effort. The foundation, which began investing in computer and Internet services in U.S. public libraries in 1997, now aims to do more “building capacity in the field,” Nishi told LJ.

“We wanted to think of a way we could support the field,” Nishi said of the genesis of this project. “As we were moving forward, we had this downturn in the economy,” with the probability that public funding would continue to erode. “We felt, even more importantly, this grant was needed to help support libraries amplify their value and build public support.”

Moving ahead
This spring, OCLC will solicit proposals from libraries that wish to participate in the early pilot campaign and will award a limited number of small grants to support the campaign in select communities.

“Public library use in Georgia is soaring and many of our facilities and staff are strained,” said State Librarian Dr. Lamar Veatch. “This work should help refine techniques to enhance the understanding on the part of local funding sources of the vital roles that libraries play in their communities.”

Mary Wegner, State Librarian of Iowa, added, “We welcome the opportunity to work with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and OCLC to develop more effective ways to tell the library story."