Ask a Catbrarian: Marketing Library Services Using a Cat

Abstract

This case study aims to describe how employees at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s Undergraduate Library (UGL) utilized a cat mascot as part of a marketing campaign to promote awareness of library resources and services and to overcome undergraduate students’ library anxiety. The authors describe how the idea of a cat mascot emerged, how librarians determined campaign objectives, and the process they undertook for developing videos, social media posts, events and displays for the campaign. This article also describes how the campaign was able to build a sense of community not only among the large university library system but the entire campus community.

Keywords

• social media – marketing
• marketing campaign – case studies
• academic libraries
• marketing strategies
• library marketing
• marketing campaign
• case studies
• social media
• social media marketing