Sticky 'Brary

So it looks like the uptick in database usage is keeping on track. Compared with the usage before this bookmark campaign, the numbers for October put us at a 343% increase over August. Not too shabby... Maybe it is time to start thinking about a whole series of bookmarks for our forty-some other databases, no?

I don't know yet if it is just a random fluctuation in the numbers of users, but after slipping the bookmarks for our DemographicsNow database into books on marketing and such (see this post for the original thought), the usage for this month is up 314%. That may be a statistical anomaly but we'll see if it keeps up in the coming month...

Cross-marketing. We all have business books on our shelves. People check them out and we know by the subject headings/titles/content of the books what they are interested in. Generally speaking. At the same time, we have databases with powerful business applications sitting idly by. I'm in the final stages of having our printer whip up some card stock bookmarks flogging the online resources. I will then slip them into books that deal with similar topics. Ideally, I'd like to have the bookmarks included with the book at checkout but the logistics of doing such a thing are a bit daunting. So for now I'll just put them into the recently returned titles (and with any luck, those titles will be going back out again sometime soon). I'll report back and let you know if this gives us a bump in our database stats. Any other thoughts about increasing the use of subject specific databases?