Library Powered Notepads

A couple of people have asked about custom notepads of sticky notes that I talk about as part of the Library Powered movement. The general idea is to develop a simple marketing strategy to counteract the Favor Theory.

What, you might be asking, is the Favor Theory? In looking around school libraries, I saw a disturbing commonality. Often, teachers would come in to a library and ask the librarian if they could provide some resources. I quickly realized that they were asking

“I find myself needing something, and as much as I hate to do this, could you do me a huge favor and take time away from your job to help me out by providing me some resources?”

The problem is that they were most notably NOT asking

“Could you, as a part of your regular professional duties use the information expertise you gained from your graduate studies to provide me with some resources?”

There is a very critical difference there. When we are helping teachers, we are doing our jobs. While we may go above and beyond to provide favors, selecting appropriate resources for classroom use is one of the base expectations for our job. Yet in many cases, our teaching colleagues may not realize that this is a professional duty.

I developed a sheet of Library Powered stickers that could be used to show more clearly that something has been provided as part of your professional library duties. Another great idea is to make up custom sticky notes that can be placed on resources delivered to classrooms.

While this is not an endorsement of the site, here is one place I have found that provides a pretty easy to use interface and will fill smaller (10 minimum) orders. iPrint walks you through the entire design process with opportunities to select paper and ink colors, add multiple lines of text and a graphic. 10 pads, 50 sheets to a pad, will run around $50 with an order of 20 pads for not much more. As with many custom items, there is a higher initial setup cost, so adding units is very cost effective.

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