Banners splashed in vibrant turquoise, pink and orange, with the words “Free to Be” scrawled across them, welcome visitors to Windmill Library. They’re part of the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District’s new marketing campaign.
“Our goal in this public education campaign is to educate people about all the other things you can do here,” says Betsy Ward, branding and marketing director at the LVCCLD. “If people don’t know how libraries have changed and evolved and could meet needs that they didn’t know they had, they won’t come in.”
Designed in-house by the library district’s branding and marketing department, the “Free to Be” project has been in the works since late 2017, when Ward’s team began surveying staff and community members on what the library meant to them.
Kelvin Watson, executive director of the LVCCLD, says libraries have been changing during the past decade, as technology has evolved. The staff’s vision for the “new library” was one of freedom—the freedom to access information and express oneself, Ward says.
Ward says she and her team were also inspired by Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden’s 2017 interview with The New York Times, in which Hayden said libraries are a “key to freedom” and quoted Frederick Douglass: “Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.”
“The library is one of the last bastions of true democracy, because anybody can use the library and the library is available to all,” Watson says. “That’s the focus and theme of being free.”
The LVCCLD features far more than books across its 25 branch locations. Locations offers after-school tutoring, job training and cultural performances. Some have green screens, recording studios and equipment, sewing machines, 3D printers and laptops capable of editing media.
Those resources are reflected on the bright new signage, with patrons shown singing in recording booths and gathering around tablets. Each sign, whether in English or Spanish, centers on one of seven words: curious, connected, captivated, fearless, inspired, trailblazer and yourself.
The updated signage and new library logo, a more “welcoming and friendly” design, will be installed at all 25 branches by June 19, Ward says.
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