Rudaí 23 #thing21: Communication using Infographics

I've been looking forward to this task for a while as I have seen infographs used to great effect by information professionals at library events to discuss their career development and by libraries to promote the great work they're doing. The best infographs appear deceptively simple however, so having the building blocks to create visually arresting infographs which communicate library-related information clearly will be hugely beneficial to me and to the libraries I work in. Laura Connaughton, Assistant Librarian in the John Paul II library in Maynooth was winner of best poster at the A&SL annual conference 2015 for her striking infographic poster Continuing professional development in Librarianship. I saw her using this poster to enhance her presentation about her application for an LAI Associateship at the Developing as a Professional: Attaining a Library Association of Ireland Award seminar in November 2014. It's also worth looking at her Poster presentations that get noticed slides on slideshare, which give great tips on how to create effective posters, including the use of infographics.

As part of Rudaí 23 I also discovered Public Libraries 2020 and their advocacy campaign to raise awareness about the stellar work being done by the 65,000 public libraries throughout Europe to empower individuals, build stronger communities and change lives. This effective infographic on their website gives a striking snapshot of the issues affecting European citizens today and demonstrates how public libraries are addressing these issues and improving the lives of their users.

Public Libraries 2020 infographs

NLI infographic

I think that infographics are a visually striking way to communicate a message or educate audiences about a complicated topic in an engaging and easily digestible way. Infographs can be used in conjunction with Powerpoint and Excel too, so they have the potential to add a new dynamic element to library presentations if added to slides. They also have the potential to be more effective than Powerpoint or Excel for designing posters because they're more visually focused and the templates have already been designed for you, you just need to add your own information to them. As pointed out in the Do-it-yourself guide to infographics, a well designed infograph is more engaging than written media and is highly shareable if it grabs the attention of users. Creating eye-catching infographics which promote your library or educate your users could work really well on Twitter - catch the imagination of your followers and their retweets of your infograph could attract more followers to your library's Twitter account and promote your services. This infograph by the National Library of Ireland was based on findings from their 2013 Annual Review. It was a clever way to promote their visitor numbers, exhibitions, social media accounts and acquisitions and demonstrated their value effectively.

I enjoyed experimenting with the creation of an infograph using Easel.ly. I used the statistics gathered last year for the distance service the library provides to part-time, online and in-service students to populate it. Though straightforward enough to create, there were some aspects of its design that required a bit of figuring out and even this basic design took me two hours to complete. I concentrated on keeping the infograph simple while at the same time clearly communicating the types of assistance available through the service and the number of students supported by the service in the previous academic year. The infograph could be used during a presentation to incoming distance students next year, or could be tweeted out through the library's Twitter account to communicate the value of the service to followers. It will take practise to get the image, text and design balance right in future infographs as well as ensuring that the content is relevant to the audience and gets the intended message across clearly and simply. It's a skill that I'll enjoy developing for use in presentations, posters and in the library's social media accounts to educate readers on educational topics and to promote the value of the library.