By: Chantall Van Raay

McMaster's award-winning teachers are helping the University's libraries market itself as a centre for teaching and learning.

Through an innovative marketing campaign encouraging students to seize the day, exercise their brain, or get wired, Anne Plessl, development officer with Mills Memorial Library, hopes students become more aware of the resources available at their library of choice.

The third annual @ Your Library poster series launched recently, and features recipients of the MSU Teaching Awards and President's Teaching Awards, using their area of expertise to promote the library's collections and services.

"The last two years the campaign has focused on student athletes and this year they wanted to try something different," says Plessl. "We wanted to move to a different theme to keep it fresh."

Plessl consulted with the professors on the process and asked what they felt was important to incorporate into the posters. "They were all really great to work with. Everyone was very enthusiastic about being part of this campaign," she says.

Anna Moro, President's Award for Excellence in Teaching (Instruction) 2005, is featured in a poster that says "We speak your language @ your library". The assistant professor of modern languages and linguistics participated in the campaign for several reasons. "I consider participation in this campaign an honour, since I believe strongly in the broad "@ your library" campaign, a campaign aimed at promoting literacy, learning and library use across North America. In the McMaster context, not only do I consider it important to promote the use of libraries in general for research and learning, but I thought that this particular campaign, through the use of instructors, was able to capture the link between learning in the classroom, teaching and research."

Román Viveros-Aguilera, MSU Teaching Award 2004-2005 (Arts & Science), agrees. "I was delighted to be part of the poster series," he says. "I thought it was a very positive way of highlighting the efforts of a group of instructors the students view as giving their best in passing their knowledge and experience. I am hopeful that, if the students were inspired in some ways by these individuals, chances are the posters will compel the students to come to the library and open the books to enrich themselves from the great variety of wonders hiding in those pages." The professor of mathematics and statistics is featured in a poster that states "Find solutions @ your library."

Plessl and a team of library staff co-ordinated the third poster campaign that incorporates teaching award recipients and library images to promote the library's collections and services.

The committee took a different approach to the poster series this year. "In the first series we wanted to get people's attention and get them to focus on the library. Now we want to emphasize the link between teaching and learning and the library."

The images -- 10 in all - are on display at various campus locations, including Mills, Innis and Thode libraries, and appear as screensavers on all public access computers in the libraries. Click here for a slide show presentation of the poster series. Shooting took place with Hamilton-based photographer, Scott Gardner.

"I'm really proud of what we've accomplished," Plessl says. "We received a lot of really good feedback from people, especially students who are very interested in them."

In its first year, the innovative marketing campaign received recognition from the Canadian Council for the Advancement of Education (CCAE), when it highlighted varsity athletes. The poster series was named the Best Print Ad or Ad Campaign at the CCAE's annual Prix D'Excellence, a prestigious national awards program that recognizes outstanding achievement in alumni affairs, public affairs, development, student recruitment, and overall institutional advancement.