Once you’ve started positioning your library as a hub for Boomers and productive aging, it will be important to tell your community about those efforts.  To help get the word out, the ‘press kit’ resources that follow can provide the foundational information needed to spotlight your library and this project.

• Press Release Template: Add your own program information to the press release template (doc) and then send it to local newspapers, bulletins, etc.
• Press Release Samples: Examples from some of the TLA50 participating libraries
  • Santa Monica: The Living Room Press Release (pdf)
  • City of Palo Alto: Feed Your Head: Nourish Your Boomer Brain at the Library
• Newsletter Article: If you have a print or e-newsletter, use the press release template as the basis for an article. Be sure to add information about the specifics of your own TLA50 project.
• Newsletter Blurb: Send a newsletter blast to your constituencies about your various TLA50 activities.

In addition to these more traditional media approaches, don’t forget the power of the Internet. The key to Internet success is ubiquity: making your project known across a multitude of Web sites and discussion forums. Your library’s own Web site is the hub but the various social networking tools suggested below can help create spokes that highlight your TLA50 project while also driving people back to the larger context of your library’s Web site.

• Blogs — Create an online essay or post to your library’s already existing blog. Post updates periodically about the progress of your TLA50 project.
• Social Networks — Create a Facebook or MySpace page about your TLA50 project.
• Twitter — Post updates at any moment about TLA50 activities, allowing others to “keep abreast” of what’s happening.
• YouTube — Post videos about your TLA50 programs so others can actually see some of what your project is all about.