We're #1!

And the award for Excellence in Being Average goes to...  Red Deer!

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/census/marketing.html

Actually, that's putting it one way - another, nicer, way is that Red Deer is (English) Canada's Most Representative City.  This gives Red Deer Public Library some additional credibility as we present our marketing-based library programs and services to our community, and to other communities in Canada and around the world.  

Here are some examples of Demonstration projects we're currently involved in, or have undertaken in the recent past:

• At this year's Alberta Library Conference in Jasper, RDPL staff (Cynthia Belanger, Tatiana Poliakevitch, and Glynis Wilson Boultbee) presented "Library Leadership in Community Development: A Route to Marketing, Collection Development, and Program Expansion" - check out the presentation here, on Digital Red Deer. 
• Digital Red Deer itself (www.digitalreddeer.ca) is a demonstration site for various new technologies we're trying out, funded in part by a grant from the Alberta Public Library Electronic Network.
• Our Adult Literacy Program was recently profiled by Lois Prostebby and Jill Griffith, at the recent Summer Institute of the Centre for Literacy in Montreal.
• RDPL has significant experience in piloting Family Literacy concepts, including the Home Visitation Demonstration project for Alberta Learning.  Our Family Literacy Coordinator, Celia Jaipaul, presented her program at the 2006 Canadian Library Association.
• Our Computer Lending Program, the RedNeT fibre-optic partnership, and other technologies, have been showcased at conferences, and through the 2005 Canadian Library Association / Information Today Award for Innovation in Technology.
• The Artsparks program is an exciting partnership with the Persons with Developmental Disabilities Central Community Board and other community organizations, designed to engage the PDD community while making available a wide range of arts programming opportunities to people in our community.  Our Artsparks experience will be made available, in various ways, to the arts, social services and library communities in Alberta and around the world.
• I'll be showing off our Web 2.0 and Community Development processes at the Internet Librarian 2007 Conference in Monterey in October. 

Red Deer's status as a city representative of Canada's new demographics will certainly be drawing marketing firms to sample typical Red Deer citizens, and corporations will try out new menus, new toothpaste and new mini-vans.  Watch this blog for ways that RDPL tries out new library programs, services, collections, facilities and community development processes.  They may end up in public libraries from Victoria to St. John's, or anywhere else in the world.