Library Marketer of the Year Award Nomination Guidelines

Library Journal will honor one library staffer or a library team with its sixth annual Marketer of the Year award in its October 2024 issue. The award, sponsored by Library Ideas, comes with a $2,000 cash prize. The award recognizes the importance of innovative approaches to marketing of library services, the role of marketing in building library engagement, and the value of quality marketing collateral to help build a vibrant sense of the library and define its relevance in the community. Collateral should reflect the diversity of the community and staff in imagery and reflect cultural competency in its language and message.

 The award places a special emphasis on an individual (or team) working for a library who has instituted or reinvigorated a marketing strategy in the past two years that has:

• had measurable impact on some aspect of the library’s use,
• created a new understanding of the community served via market research,
• improved the prominence of the library in community, and/or driven the marketing around a successful funding initiative that enables the library to reach a sector of the population previously not served, particularly among marginalized groups, or secures deeper sustainability.

Nominating criteria

Any full- or part-time marketer employed by a public library, public library organization such as a consortium or state library in the U.S. or Canada is eligible to be nominated. Nominations should include:

1. Nominee name, address, and phone number, plus the name of the contact person and the submitter’s contact information if different from the nominee.
2. A written description of the marketing initiative in 1,000 words or less or a list of bulleted narrative points clearly enumerating how the nominee’s accomplishments fit the award criteria. If an external marketing firm was employed for some aspect of the project, please detail role, budget, and level of participation.
3. Statistics detailing the measurable impact of the initiative.
4. Digital versions of marketing collateral and/or images of the collateral in place in specific settings.
5. Two letters of support, at least one from a library patron and/or the leader of a community organization that represents the intended audience of the campaign. The second letter can also be from those sources or from a peer library, local government official, or regional marketing firm.
6. On a separate page, please provide the following context about the library and the community it serves: include population served; total annual budget; per capita budget; marketing budget; circulation; percent of the budget spent on materials; visits; e-use (in-house and remote if available); number of staff; percentage of staff who are professional librarians; and community demographics.

Additional accompanying material will be considered, but the nominating letter itself and collateral examples will be of prime importance.

NOMINATION POSTMARK OR EMAIL DEADLINE: July 31, 2024

Please submit nominations via the form found here.

If you have any questions regarding the submission process, please contact Lisa Peet at lpeet@mediasourceinc.com.