Thursday, November 1, 2012

Stop Duplicating Efforts! Creating a Unified Online Community Calendar

source


Have you ever planned a program and no one showed up?

Ever worked hard laying groundwork for a new idea only to find halfway through that some other community group already does that?

 What about discovering (after you've published all your PR) that your big event conflicts with another big event in town?

I know I have. Imagine my delight when the head of Parks and Rec contacted me about starting a project to create a single unified calendar for the whole community  YES YES YES!

If you'd like to view the calendar we created, you can do so here, Antigo Community Calendar. In a nutshell, instead of many different organizations publishing event calendars, and event coordinators  needing to contact multiple sources to advertise programs, we're all using the same calendar. No matter what organization's website you're on, they're using the same calendar.

I recently spoke at the Wisconsin Library Association's annual conference about this project. I was only one part of a team that worked on creating the calendar, but I think it is such a great idea that I support it wholeheartedly, and think it's something that other librarians--especially those in smaller communities--might benefit from as well.

Our presentation was a success, and if you're interested here are some links to more information about the project.

Our presentation
Handout/Worksheet
Example of PR and category breakdown
Sample PR business card
Our funding was sourced by the local hotel/motel tax--see the application form

No comments:

Post a Comment

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...