CILIP Communities

It was only thanks to Scott over at the Information Overlord that I discovered the CILIP Communities site. It's a combined blog/forum type approach that allows the creation of user communities. It was easy to register with, though I found the layout rather confusing, and there are various 'CILIP member only' sections to the site. What's interesting is the fact that they've launched such an interesting initiative in almost total silence (other than at the recent members day); I looked on Technorati and there are a total of 6 posts mentioning 'cilip communities' - going back 133 days, 113 days [...] to Scott's post of yesterday.

I thought there wasn't even a mention of it on the CILIP home page, but in the 'latest news' section there's a tiny line 'Join now - CILIP Communities'. Quite frankly I find this approach absolutely baffling - it's the kind of thing they should be shouting from the rooftops - they should be going to every library orientated weblog they can find and mentioning it, but... nothing!

There are currently 2 weblogs available and I've subscribed to them both, it will be interesting to see what happens next.

Comments

[Ed]

Hi Phil,

Ed here - I am consulting with the CILIP communities team on the set up and gradual launch of the communities.

Thanks for pointing this out - we have been doing our best to get them structurally up and running and then to proceed over a period of months to get the word out.

Here is what we have been doing so far:

We have begun with registered members' emails; everyone who is registered on the website has heard from us first with an invite to the pilot and then a launch announcement a couple of weeks ago.

Alongside this, there have been articles about the communities in every Update, who have been kindly helping us since August, and we have been booking space on the CILIP website homepage since the pilot launched as well.

We launched the communities at members day with a well attended workshop, and then emailed all of the members who have registered on the CILIP website after that.

We also manned the stand at Online Information all last week.

From now on, we kick off a long term 'marketing' plan over the next six months which we are working on at the moment; so far this includes Update, Gazette (we hope!), the E-bulletins and website. Like you, members have suggested that we develop a list of bloggers to approach as well which we will try to do - in fact - we are hoping to build a list on the boards together.

Hope that helps allay any concerns and if you had any suggestions, please let us know!

thanks,
Ed