Citation
Smith, K.L. (2001), "The Perils (and Pleasures) of Writing an Online Newsletter", Library Hi Tech News, Vol. 18 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/lhtn.2001.23918dad.002
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2001, MCB UP Limited
The Perils (and Pleasures) of Writing an Online Newsletter
Kamran L. Smith
I'll begin by (foolishly) dating myself by saying that, when I started writing professionally, the Internet was still kind of "out there", and not all of us had gotten turned on to the advantages of online newsletters. My first "newsletter" was a 32-page tabloid on paper for a small university. A local designer lovingly retyped, then squeezed in and laid out the many photos, stories, and news titbits I brought her (on paper, mind you, not even on diskette). After several weeks, we took the tabloid plates to a local newspaper for printing. Woe is me, a drastic news change occurred before my tabloid was printed; the news would have to wait till the next quarter! Ink is permanent, and a not-so-timely quarterly publication was all our precious pennies could buy.
Flash forward to today and TLC.News, the online newsletter for The Library Corporation (TLC). (TLC, based in West Virginia, has been automating libraries worldwide for over 26 years. The company recently acquired CARL Corporation, another leading automation vendor.) I create TLC.News monthly, where it resides on our Internet server and appears on our home page. The publication began years ago as a printed newsletter called BiblioBuzz, named after BiblioFile, our pioneering cataloging program. BiblioBuzz was a four-page spread, sent monthly to our customers, with stories and pictures relating to product and employee news.
At TLC, nothing ever stands still. The company decided to retire BiblioBuzz and upgrade to an online newsletter. Since TLC.News is an online publication, we don't incur printing or mailing costs. (However, we're happy to print it for customers who prefer it that way.) One quick e-mail to our ever-growing subscriber list (it's around 1,500 now) lets our customers know that the latest monthly issue is "live". Our subscribers are current customers, new customers, and folks we meet at library shows.
A lot of technical work goes into an online newsletter serving so many customers. Our Production Team uses special software to manage the various e-mail aspects of TLC.News, including how to subscribe (interested customers can send us a special e-mail or sign up via a form on the newsletter) and how to unsubscribe. Production has also created an e-mail "identity" for our subscribers for my monthly TLC.News sendoff. (By the way, our newsletter name reflects our use of the high-tech, Internet-familiar dot in our product names, such as Library*Solution, integrated automation, ITS*MARC, online cataloging, etc.)
Confused yet? It's best, when you create an online newsletter, to start at the beginning what's the goal of your online newsletter? Who should receive it? What style manual will you (hopefully!) adhere to? What tone will you use scholarly, casual, tongue-in-check, reverent, irreverent, cheeky, dead serious, or a mix thereof? Since TLC serves our customers in a warm, supportive fashion, we chose a casual tone, with a mix of product news and library feature stories. Most people don't have time to read reams of online copy. So our stories are fairly short with lots of imagery for interest and color.
How did TLC.News get so pretty? You are asking that, aren't you? We use a wonderful Web designer. He worked with our Marketing Department, so his design would meet our goal: to be an attractive, easily read resource for librarians. He's created a template, with sections that repeat monthly. All I do is insert my copy and images each month. Our current design is much prettier than our first incarnation of TLC.News, which was one long online page that disappeared off your screen unless you scanned down. But everyone has to start somewhere, right?
Are you ready for TLC.News horror stories? I don't have any! OK, perhaps once in a while, just after I've completed all my copy, inserted it into the template, transferred it to its permanent place on the server, and am poised to publish, someone will come along with a last-minute announcement. It's like a free hair perm! My hair curls with the stress, I grit my teeth, practice smiling, and get the announcement in. That's the beauty of a Web-based newsletter it's easy to change copy, even at the last minute.
A challenge is fitting in all the news: TLC offers a full automation product line, including its integrated automation, cataloging, and patron access catalog enhancements. There's always news, like an increase in our support hours, warnings about screensavers, or whatever. Now that we have CARL Corporation, we have many more librarians to serve and are working to include them as readers. Because we have a lot of "hard news", like newly created products, for example, we can't always fit in the fun stuff. But we try. Our fun stories have been diverse. Two of my favorites were about a library that adopted an abandoned cat which became their beloved, well-known "spokescat"; and the library that circulates cake pans and muffin tins to its patrons. These stories remind me how innovative and caring librarians are. I like to think that TLC.News reflects our feelings as a company toward our customers we couldn't do it (and enjoy it so much) without them.
Recently, I used an internal program to monitor our readership what stories were read? How many subscribers were "hitting" TLC.News? We learned that, in this busy world, many of our readers hit our very first page, then a smaller percentage continues beyond. We accommodate this by summarizing the stories on the first page with thumbnail images. If you don't continue to page two, you'll still get an idea of what's new at TLC and CARL.
My advice for potential electronic newsletter writers? This rule applies to just about anyone who wants to create an online newsletter, be it for a company or a library. Snoop. Find newsletters you like. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, as long as you don't go overboard. More advice: respect your readers' busy lives. If you want to include long pieces in your newsletter, put the exciting news upfront in the story, so readers can quickly learn what's up. Instill some humor into your newsletter. Expect last-minute stories. Sweetly count to ten under your breath when someone flaps a story in your face that must go in, the second after you've published. Above all, remember your readers. They're the most important part of this wonderful process of creating an online newsletter.
This story outlines just a few of the many aspects of an online newsletter, of which there are many! For a sample of TLC.News, access http://www.tlcdelivers.com/newsletter
Kamran L. Smith is the Marketing Associate at The Library Corporation (ksmith@TLCdelivers.com)