ALA Home  Wyoming Library Roundup

Volume 27, Number 4, Winter 2005

Wyoming Library Roundup Reaches Wide Range of Readers

Library publications have a long history of letting colleagues know the successes and challenges in our profession. It is good that we can share these stories as best practices.

The Wyoming State Library and Wyoming Library Association have developed a new approach to telling success stories through the Wyoming Library Roundup, a quarterly publication that is directed towards residents of the state interlacing library information and value within articles and interviews that are of interest to a wide range of individuals. The purpose is to provide the public with a glossy magazine that offers insights to a wide range of issues and topics.

The premier issue in the summer of 2004 focused on children and reading so it included an interview with Mrs. Lynne Cheney (the Vice-President’s wife) as a children’s author, statewide summer reading initiatives, and statewide library databases use in schools. Subsequent issues have covered consumer health, Wyoming history and genealogy, Wyoming authors (including librarian-authors), and the newest issue – innovation. This innovation issue includes Wyoming patent holders identified through the Patent and Trademark Depository at the State Library, a story on the contributions of Wyomingite W. Edwards Deming to innovative international business theory, and a special interview with Stephen Abram, a library visionary.

The consumer health issue at the beginning of 2005 was of such interest to the Wyoming Department of Health that an additional 250 copies had to be run for that agency’s own distribution.

Future themes will include philanthropy and the outdoors. Each publication has a core mailing list of librarians, government officials, educators and other library supporters and then expands into professional communities based on the theme of the issue. With this approach there is a wide range of individuals who will see libraries in a new light and find interesting stories related to their profession.

The Roundup is an important investment of talent and time and that is paying off in recognition both in and out of state. The Wyoming Press Association has already given it an award and so did the American Library Association at its annual Swap and Shop competition.

You can read the current issue on innovation at: http://will.state.wy.us/roundup/index.html.