Friday, July 23, 2010

Digital Frames for Book Promotion

I want to do a better job of promoting/advertising new books next year.  One way I thought of doing that is to purchase a 12" digital frame.  For each title, I would make a jpeg Power Point slide with an image of the book cover and a blurb about the book, then upload those to the frame.  It will be on display at the circ desk, with a running slide show of what is new in the library.

There are infinite variations on the idea---the blurb could be student generated quotations for book reviews; you can add pictures of students and library events, display images of student art, etc.

Ideally, I'd like to do this on a larger monitor, but that's for my second year, I think.  For the first year, while I figure out school dynamics, this seems like a good start.

Your thoughts?

6 comments:

  1. An excellent idea, especially starting small. I may have to "borrow" it. The library has responsibility for the palyout system on our campus. I was thinking baout producing short video commercials for new titles, and running them at the start of each announcement. Your idea seems much more manageable!

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  2. We've been doing this for a few years in our school library and the kids love it. We put it right by the circulation desk and when they're waiting in line to sign out books, they'll watch the book promotion slide show. We often have students asking us where they can find the books they see on the picture frame. We also use the frame to highlight various events in the library such as visiting authors. It's money well spent!

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  3. I LOVE my digital frame, in fact I'm on my third one. I keep getting bigger and bigger ones. My current one is over a foot in size. I do recommend no sound. It drove me crazy at first, then I muted it. I use my DF all over the library. (middle school) I put it in the shelves with pictures from that dewey section. Or I move it to the circ desk and the students guess which section the subjects come from. I do digital book trailers, school pictures, book jackets, special trivia (Dr. Seuss Day-Seuss info), special questions for a contest (they students answer on pieces of paper and put in a jar for a small prize), pictures of students with a book they read and liked. Oh my I LOVE my digital frame!! I have had one for 3 years. As for the future, I'm thinking an IPad will be the next step.

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  4. Wow, the ayes have it! A digital frame it is!

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  5. I was thinking of doing something similar with my Lone Star and Bluebonnet book displays. Using a digital frame right there on the shelf with the books. Don't forget you can use any computers in the library in a similar way. I use the screen savers on the monitors to promote books, library activities, and reading. On some I have book cover images with blurbs, some have pictures of student or teacher READ posters made with the ALA Graphics READ cd, and some have pictures of library activities, etc.

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