ACS Celebrates National Library Week
By Moria Smith, Librarian, ACS Information Resource Center
In honor of National Library Week (April 15–21, 2007) the ACS Information Resource Center (IRC) sponsored two fun events: an Online Scavenger Hunt and a Book Swap. The IRC has a small staff, which makes adding a special event on top of the busy daily operations no small feat. In the past year, IRC has increased its focus on electronic resources and research services, and National Library Week was a way to promote these changes. This left staff with the challenge of planning events that could be interesting as well as promotional and, perhaps most important, low maintenance.
The Online Scavenger Hunt was designed to give ACS staff an opportunity to use the IRC internal website and electronic resources to discover answers to various questions. We tried to keep the questions interesting and relevant. For example, we directed staff to the e-book version of American Men & Women of Science to find the school where Ann Nalley (ACS Immediate Past President) taught high school chemistry. When they turned in their entries, several staff members mentioned how much they had learned in the process—a definite sign of success!
The Book Swap was a great, low-maintenance way to increase foot traffic into the IRC for the week. The only work required was setting up a few tables and promoting the event. As an added bonus, local charity Books for America agreed to take any leftovers. This group collects gently used books and distributes them to many worthy organizations in the National Capital Region, such as hospices and homeless shelters as well as public schools and libraries in disadvantaged communities.
Finally, the IRC invited all ACS staff to a small reception on Friday afternoon. The enticement of refreshments at the end of a busy week drew a steady crowd into the IRC and gave us plenty of opportunities to chat about ongoing projects with familiar faces and meet new faces as well. At the end of the week, we were exhausted but very happy with the outcome. Now we need to get to work on the new consultation, training, and research requests that we have received as a result of this successful promotion!
Here’s hoping you all had fun and successful National Library Week events. We would love to hear what others did to celebrate . (Please send details about your local celebrations to me to include in the next issue of LiveWire.)
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