The document discusses plans by the University of Birmingham library engagement team to increase usage of their digital collections through targeted promotional activities. It outlines their strategy to identify underutilized resources and plan events, social media posts, and training opportunities to engage students and faculty. An analysis of usage statistics from 2021 to 2022 showed some resources had increased usage after promotions, though not all, and it is difficult to directly correlate activities to usage. The team plans to continue experimenting with new promotional approaches and collaborating with publishers and the academic community.

1. Increasing Collections
Engagement and Promotion at
UoB
Catherine Robertson (University of Birmingham)
c.robertson.1@bham.ac.uk

2. Who we are
▪ Library Engagement Team
▪ Subject → Functional in 2017
▪ Intelligence gathering for service development
▪ First opportunity to encourage engagement with resources in a
scalable, trackable, and impactful way

3. Collections Engagement Subgroup
▪ Representatives from different teams
▪ Resources are already paid for
▪ All our resources purchased to support specific needs (teaching,
research, strategic) – usage dips over time
▪ We planned to identify and target the lower use material and
see if any increases in usage could be linked to promotional
activity

4. The plan
▪ Spreadsheet of all our strategic purchases and their usage
▪ Meeting to create a promotions plan:
- Planning the year in advance
- Considering co-creation with academics and students
- Support EDI aims
- Working more closely with publishers
- Using our social media channels more imaginatively

5. Planning the year in
advance

6. Events calendar
• Used University-wide calendar
to start
• Picked dates and themes we
thought would pique interest
• International Jazz Day to
promote Naxos
• National Storytelling Week
to promote Romanticism:
Life, Literature, and
Landscape

7. Events calendar - cont…
▪ International Children’s Day – 20th Nov
Wanted to:
• Create a ResourceList with sections for each decade
• Link to clips and articles about popular children’s television shows
during each decade.
▪ However – copyright issues
▪ Box of broadcasts was an excellent resource but only goes back a
few years

8. Support EDI aims

9. • EDI master resource list
• Resources session for academic EDI
Leads, with talks from publisher reps
• Social media promotion of resources
for International Women in
Engineering Day
• Co-creation of content with
academics and students

10. Co-creation with academics
and students

11. Student ambassadors
▪ Gale Cengage recruit a student ambassador
- We share their advert, but Gale manage recruitment
- We support the student with their initiatives
▪ 2022 Rep created a short video
▪ 2023 Rep planned a Snapchat frame and promotional stall

12. Academic input
▪ EDI is a strong focus at UoB
▪ Approached an academic in Historical Studies to talk about
Archives of Sexuality and Gender
▪ She created three short videos talking about how she uses the
archive
▪ Gale embedded them in their webpages -
https://www.gale.com/intl/primary-sources/archives-of-sexuality-and-gender

13. Working with publishers

14. Embedding publisher led training
▪ Publishers offer training, promotional material, and support as
part of the cost of the resource but we often don’t use it
▪ Pandemic ended in-person ‘roadshow’ – can we do this online?
▪ Publisher training session from Gale Cengage for History – 35
attendees
▪ Potential to expand, working alongside Learning Enhancement
Team

15. Curriculum mapping
▪ Wanted to identify relevant and inspiring material for modules
▪ In an ideal world our academics would do this
▪ Module level curriculum mapping too complex
▪ Programme level curriculum mapping available

16. Social media

17. Platforms we use
Twitter
- We write our own content but have been talking to publishers
about the possibility of less generalised content to encourage
user engagement
- Good reach to UG, PGT and Academics
- Not as visual as some platforms but media can still easily be
used

18. https://twitter.com/UoBLibServices/status/1630170342856466432
As part of #LGBTHM23 Dr Mo Moulton takes a look at the @galecengage
'Archives of Sexuality & Gender' tweet: 637 views, 43 engagements and
vids in YouTube: 180 views
https://twitter.com/UoBLibServices/status/1634112857255346176
To kick off #BritishScienceWeek we thought we'd celebrate
@unibirmingham achievements. Did you know that UoB has 10
#NobelPrizeWinners? 3299 views*, 24 engagements (*picked up by
Main UoB account and used image from CRL of certificate)

19. Twitter Cont:
https://twitter.com/UoBLibServices/status/1615006803825238017
Read all about it!
604 views, 9 engagements
Instagram
- Generally good reach but needs an image so we tend to use to
promote material we own
- Would like images we can use for promotions with no watermarks

20. Snapchat
- Student Ambassador has used but we are currently not
- Student Ambassador worked to get a publisher ‘frame’ – if
successful we will explore further
Facebook
No longer use our account as we were not getting any
meaningful engagement

21. YouTube
▪ Video content is popular
▪ First minute is key
▪ Do we need to do reels? Serialise promotions?

22. Amplifying the message
▪ Student reps
▪ Student Experience Officers
▪ College Canvas page

23. Things we learned at the end of 2022
▪ Quality does not guarantee high usage
▪ Having a ‘hook’ (e.g., an event or day) is important
▪ Make full use of publisher input – already paid for!
▪ Students like peer recommendations or recommendations from
their tutors – relevant and reliable
▪ Copyright issues

24. Preparing for 2023
▪ We requested usage stats from our Serials Team to compare
2021 to 2022
▪ We waited with baited breath…
▪ The spreadsheet arrived and I marked green all the fields that
increased and red the ones that decreased…

26. Side note:
Cultivate a safe space to try and, if necessary,
fail
▪ Provide a safe space to experiment
▪ Start small and take (calculated) risks
▪ Approach things with curiosity
▪ Every failure is a learning opportunity
▪ This attitude needs to go right to the top of Senior Management

27. So what do the stats mean?
▪ At a glance it’s not entirely green…
▪ But a deeper look tells a more optimistic story
▪ Correlation?
• Very hard to prove
• Very small data set

28. 2023 so far (and beyond)
▪ Plan to continue to create meaningful content, not just ‘promo’
▪ Split group in half and assigned each half two annual segments
(eg Q1 and Q3). This gives a longer lead in for creating
interesting material
▪ Roll out more embedded publisher training
• Target stakeholders such as dissertation supervisors
• Create a dissertation ResourceList
▪ Curriculum mapping by programme
▪ Review of activity

29. Conclusion
▪ Keep experimenting
▪ Accept that it can be hard to prove direct correlation between
usage and our interventions
▪ Raise awareness holistically
▪ Recruit students and academics as co-creators
▪ Talk to and collaborate with publishers
▪ This is a team effort – everyone in the group needs to own it