Library Web Ads, aka "Webslides"

A selection of library website homepage ads.

If you've ever seen our library homepage at www.aclib.us, you will have noticed the series of images that appear and disappear on a rotating basis. These web ads are what we call "webslides" due to the slideshow nature of their presentation. Each week, a few new library events--usually between five to eight--are selected to promote in this manner. 


We try to determine which events we want to promote at least a few weeks ahead. There's no need for a webslide related to an event that has been in the planning stages for weeks and months ahead of the actual event date to have to wait until the last few days to be produced. Advance planning for promoting an event is almost as important as planning the event itself and should, in fact, be a component of the planning itself--not as an afterthought (my mantra: some people are very good about it, while others need to be beaten over the head with it).


We prefer for the images to remain simple and without a lot of descriptive language on them because immediately beneath the images we have room for a headline and text to explain more about the event. Some webslides are straight-forward, others more conceptual. Most have at least a headline; others include a little additional descriptive text. Sometimes images are provided, sometimes not--the latter requires me to go sourcing for images to either use alone or in combination with others. Simply put, development of these ads runs the gamut of possibilities based on what I have to work with and what I need.


That being said, I have been on a webslide tear the past couple of weeks, working ahead to  create images for display as far ahead as the middle of June! With each week having between five to eight images needing to be created, I've been cranking on all cylinders to source and compile images and essential event text. This, on top of all the other multiple projects in the works. In fact, webslides are really one of the lesser time-demanding projects I develop on a regular basis. More often than not, work on webslides gets squeezed in between the lulls and odd-times of doing other projects.


General descriptions of our events can be found on the event calendar portion of our website. But sometimes when the descriptions are vague or inadequate for helping me to visualize what would be appropriate, I have to call on the person organizing it to give me some insight. So the creative process can either be quick and easy, or be a long, drawn-out affair of exchanging emails and waiting for replies. By-and-large, however, most librarians are good at responding relatively quickly. They have a lot to do too, after all.