Home → Libraries Migrating into NC Cardinal → Getting Patrons Ready → Marketing Communication Materials and Timeline
After your library system receives notification that migration is approved and a timeframe for migration into NC Cardinal, it is time to begin getting patrons excited about the changes and new opportunities for resource sharing across the state.
Rishara Finsel, current director of Transylvania County Public Library, did an excellent job preparing her community before migration when she was the director of the Polk County Public Libraries in January 2018:
• I presented to the county commissioners in August, which resulted in a newspaper article: Despite my misspelled name, it was a pretty good article. However, it gave the impression that Cardinal would be available immediately, so we started getting questions at that point. I talked about it at every meeting and public opportunity between then and go live. http://m.tryondailybulletin.com/2017/08/24/polk-library-joins-nc-cardinal/
• In November, we started advertising heavily to customers within our libraries. To tie up loose ends with Rutherford, we had to taper off our intra-library services, so customers needed to know why. We really wanted to give a positive spin on all of it, so we talked a lot about resource sharing. At that point, we started giving out brochures and talking with our regular customers.
• In December, we put up a TV slideshow at the front entrance with bright colors and fast facts. We also put most of the web content up at the beginning of December (but tweaked it as we went.) This is still online, but not linked from anywhere else on our website anymore: https://polklibrary.org/cardinal/
• About 2 weeks before go live, we got pretty aggressive (friendly aggressive) about letting people who currently use the library know about changes and that some online services will be unavailable during migration.
• We focused our external PR and big celebrating on the resource sharing start and all the new advantages of that, not on the initial go-live date. Existing customers needed to know how they were affected by the ILS change, but the things that actually got people excited came with resource sharing. On resource sharing start day, we had cupcakes and balloons in the libraries to celebrate.
• We offered some casual customer training classes in February, but only had a couple of people show for each. Their biggest advantage was being a reassurance for Circ staff, because it gave a referral option should there be any truly confused or frustrated customers. They were fine though, and didn't need to worry because they were thoroughly prepared!