SLA Division of Advertising & Marketing Bulletin

Spring/Summer 2007

Message from Chair Deb RashPage 2

Leadership conferencePage 4

What’s up at SLA:Going local Page 5 Customer engage-ment Page 5RoundtablePage 6

Reputation monitoringPage 6Consumer mindset Page 7

Member news Page 8

DAM at 65:Changes in profession Page 9

DAM’s history Page 9

Web review: AlexaPage 12

10 things to see and do in DenverSLA’s Rocky Mountain Chapter offers a Denver conference wiki at http://lib.colostate.edu/publicwiki/index.php?title=Special_Libraries_Association covering travel tips, restaurants, shopping and even recommended reading. Here’s an excerpt from the section “Denver in a day:”

1. Tattered Cover Book Store: LoDo location.2. Denver Art Museum: The original building, designed by Italian architect Gio Ponti, is home to one of the finest collections of American Indian art anywhere, plus European, American, Asian and other collections. The Fre-drick C. Hamilton wing, designed by Daniel Libeskind, which opened in October 2006, holds the modern/contemporary, African, Oceanic and Western American art collections.3. Denver Public Library’s Central Library: Designed by Michael Graves. Visit the 5th floor to explore the Western History and Genealogy

collections.4. Brown Palace Hotel: The hotel was built in 1892 and continues to be a beautiful example of 19th century elegance. You can eat lunch in the Ship’s Tavern or have afternoon tea (reservations recommended) in the

nine-story atrium lobby. Check out the many varieties of marble in the lobby, and be sure to have a drink of water – the Brown continues to draw all of its water from an artesian well many hundreds of feet below the hotel.5. LoDo (Lower Downtown): You will

find plenty of shopping at Larimer Square, Writer Square and the Tabor Center, all on Larimer Street. The downtown branch of the Tattered Cover Book Store is located on Wynkoop. The Museum of Contempo-rary Art at 15th and Delgany should be open by June 2007. Coors Field is a short walk down Blake Street6. Golden Triangle Museum Dis-trict: Within walking distance of the convention center this unique neigh-borhood is Denver’s center for art and culture. The area includes the Denver Art Museum, the Denver Public Li-brary, the U.S. Mint, Colorado History Museum, Molly Brown House, Byers-Evans House, Firefighters Museum, the Kirkland Museum, the Mizel Mu-seum, the Museo de las Americas, the Acoma Center & Curious Theatre Company and more than 50 galleries, artists’ studios, fine restaurants and specialty stores. Free First Friday Night Art Tours 5-9 p.m. every month with a free shuttle to openings.7. Compare Brewpubs: Five great brewpubs in the downtown area in-cluding: Wynkoop Brewery (the larg-est brew pub in the U.S.), the Flying Dog Brewery, Breckenridge Brewery,

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The SLA Annual Conference will be at the Colorado Convention Center. Photo courtesy of Denver Metro Convention & Visitors Bu-reau.

The Chop House and Rock Bottom Brewery.8. The Colorado Rockies are sched-uled to play at Coors Field on June 1-3 (Cincinnati) and June 5-7 (Hous-ton).9. Denver Mint: Tours cover both coin manufacturing and the history of the mint. Learn about the craftsman-ship required at all stages of the mint-ing process, from the original designs and sculptures to the actual striking of the coins. Tours are free, but you must make a reservation in advance.10. The Colorado History Museum: Colorado's history includes the story of Native Americans, buffalo hunters, gold prospectors, gunfighters, wagon trains, hard rock mining, railroads, explorers, Spanish conquistadors and more.If you are in town a few days before the conference visit Capitol Hill Peo-

ple's Fair June 2-3. This free festival in downtown’s Civic Center Park is one of the best street fairs in the country.

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The downtown Denver skyline will welcome SLA conference goers the first week in June. Photo courtesy of Denver Metro Conven-tion & Visitors. Bureau.

Message from Chair Deb RashBy Deb RashDAM Chair

We’re gearing up for Denver, so that’s mainly what you’ll see covered below. After the conference preview, please read about national association news that you will want to know more about.

We held a division board meeting in early January to kick off the new as-sociation year. With the change in year, we will continue to have this meeting in January along with a board meeting at the annual confer-

Denver Public’s Central Library. Photo courtesy of Denver Metro Convention & Visitors Bureau.

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ence. We were able to gather most of the board mem-bers and didn’t have too many interruptions or awkward

silences as we inaugurated the use of a conference call for this meeting.

I’d love to see continued use of the discussion list and the Web site with its easy-to-remember URL (www.sla.org/dam). It is a great place to go for an archive of the questions and answers that have been posted. Because we’re located all over and not everyone can make it to the an-nual conference each year, I’m always open to suggestions for

how we can better use technology to make the division more active and interactive.

Conference preview

I am excited about our lineup of meetings and sessions in Denver. As you might have noticed, your mornings are free to check out offerings from other divisions; catch up on sleep, work or exercise; or meet up with fellow division members over coffee. Let me know sug-gestions for a breakfast spot we can all meet at one of the mornings.

I’ll say it once and I’ll say it again, please thank your reps and be sure to visit our sponsors during the con-ference. Thanks in advance to LexisNexis, Mintel and Thomson/Dialog for their support! Any pre-conference questions, let me know. I hope to see you in Denver!

Sunday, June 3

12:30 – 2 p.m. Advertising and Marketing Division Board Meeting

I encourage all division members who are either curi-ous and want to hear what happens on the leadership level of the division, or think they might be ready to take on a leadership role to come to this meeting. It’s a fun way to get to know other division members, and don’t worry, we’ll be sure to find a role to fit your comfort and commitment level.

Monday, June 4

11:30 a.m. – 1 p.m. Going Local: Secrets to Finding Lo-cal Market Information with Marcy Phelps, president of Phelps Research (www.phelpsresearch.com).

4 – 5:30 p.m. Advertising and Marketing Division Busi-ness Meeting

All division members are welcome to hear a recap of divi-sion business and give input into future plans. We’ll have some treats and also celebrate the Award of Merit winner. This is one of the few times we’ll (hopefully) have all the conference attendees from the division together. Thanks in advance to Mintel for sponsoring this meeting!

6 – 9 p.m. Advertising and Marketing Division Open House

Join the division for a "DAM" good time! Indulge in drinks, delicacies and stick around to win one of our many door prizes. A great chance to reconnect and help the division celebrate our 65th anniversary. Everyone welcome. Bring your friends and show them why advertising and market-ing deserves the reputation for having all of the fun. Thanks in advance to LexisNexis for sponsoring the open house!

Tuesday, June 5

11 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. Giving Meaning to the Term “Cus-tomer Engagement” with Erik Hauser, Swivel Media (www.swivelmedia.com) founder and creative director.

2:30 – 4 p.m. Advertising and Marketing Division Round-table with moderator Julie-Ann Zilavy, manager of online service for American Association of Advertising Agencies (www.aaaa.org).

Wednesday, June 6

11 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. New Tools for Handling Reputation and Risk. Co-presented by the Competitive Intelligence Division and Information Technology Division. Thanks in advance to Thomson/Dialog for sponsoring this session! Amelia Kassel, MarketingBase (www.marketingbase.com) president will moderate. Speakers are Andrew Bernstein, chief executive officer for Cymfony Inc. (www.cymfony.com), and Simon Bradstock, vice presi-dent of corporate products for Dow Jones & Co. (www.dj.com)

1 – 2:30 p.m. The Consumer Mindset and What That Means for You with speaker Kathy Sheehan, senior vice president for Gfk (www.gfkamerica.com).

Help wanted in Denver!

Let me know if you’d be willing to:

• Take photos at sessions and meetings• Put up signs• Introduce speakers

Deb Rash

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• Do room checks and estimate attendance• Help with the open house entertainment and

prizes• Blog about our division activities

Email me at drash@iconoculture.com, and I’ll make it easy for you to help out.

Announcing incoming chair

Rebecca Rydzewski Butts has rejoined the division and the board. She is a product specialist at BBDO Detroit. Rebecca took over the position of incoming chair with the start of the new association year in January and is al-ready planning for the Seattle conference. Many of you have worked with Rebecca on the board and in the divi-sion. I am excited to welcome her back! And I can speak for both of us that we welcome your feedback.

Changes ahead for Seattle 2008

The 2008 SLA Annual Conference will be June 15-18 in Seattle. (This is a change from the originally scheduled July 27-30 that would have been a departure from the traditional June timing). Some additional planned changes relayed in a letter from the 2008 planning com-mittee:

• The conference will begin on Sunday evening and end on Wednesday with keynote addresses. The Wednesday keynote will be late afternoon and will be followed by a conference-wide event.

• Divisions will be limited to four to six unique spon-sored programs, including the business meeting, and two to four co-sponsored sessions.

• Varied formats for programs are encouraged as well as variable lengths of 60, 90 and 120 min-utes. Some programs with wide appeal could be repeated during the conference.

If you questions about these changes, let Rebecca at Rebecca.Butts@bbdodetroit.com or myself at drash@iconoculture.com know. And if this spurs any thoughts on programming for Seattle, let us know.

SLA conference in 2009

SLA will be celebrating the big 100 in 2009 and has cre-ated the SLA Centennial Commission. Send ideas on how to celebrate the 100-year anniversary to 100@sla.org.

Leadership conference reveals plans for 2008By Rebecca ButtsDAM Chair-Elect

Let me start by introducing myself. My name is Rebecca Butts (née Rydzewski) and I am the chair-elect in charge of planning the 2008 confer-ence in Seattle.

I work at BBDO Detroit as a product specialist and have been a member of DAM since 2000. I look forward to planning exciting programs for 2008.

I was lucky enough to attend the Seattle planners’ meeting at the 2007 Leadership Con-ference in Reno, Nev., in January.

At the planners’ meeting, Stephen Abram, SLA president-elect, introduced the conference’s theme and discussed what an exciting time it is to be a librarian.

The theme of the 2008 Conference will be “Breaking Rules, Building Bridges.” Abram stressed the importance of trying new things and not being afraid to reach out to other organizations and industries to better create net-working, educational and employment opportunities.

Some other ideas were:• Create a Facebook group so that division members

can network and communicate about the upcoming conference

• Develop a conference-planning wiki or blog so mem-bers can be involved from the beginning

• Plan sessions that include panels, interviews, sitting in circles, interactive activities, etc …

Gloria Zamora, a member of the conference planning committee, discussed how the 2008 conference will differ from previous conferences:

• The conference will begin on Sunday and end on Wednesday afternoon with a keynote address (June 14-17, 2008). Con’t p. 5

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• Each division and chapter will be limited in program-ming to encourage more cooperation among groups. This will cut down on the total number of programs

• and hopefully eliminate frustration from trying to pick between multiple programs.

• There will be 60-, 90- and 120-minute sessions.• This conference will introduce “Spotlight Speakers,”

programs that will be highlighted in the conference schedule. These sessions will be selected by the committee, in consultation with the divisions, and will have conference-wide appeal and draw an audience of about 300.

These are just some of the exciting changes and ideas floating around for the 2008 conference.

I am looking forward to working with the rest of the board and all DAM members.

If anyone is interested in helping with the 2008 planning or wants to volunteer in Seattle, please contact me or in-troduce yourself in Denver.

Going local: Secrets to finding market researchBy Marcy PhelpsPhelps Research President

“Going Local: Secrets to Finding Local Market Informa-tion” will be 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., Monday, June 4. Here’s a preview from the presenter.

Local market information—information about the local business climate, demographics/psychographics, business/marketing opportunities and competitor intelligence—can be a challenge.

Buying packaged local informa-tion is often expensive. Good sources are more limited, and sometimes the information is not current.

In this session, I’ll present a case study including tips and techniques that can be used in any market. You’ll come away with a list of sites to help you

answer your clients’ questions about local and regional markets.

The case study describes a company hoping to raise its brand awareness in a particular region.

Company officials selected several cities to target, and Denver was one of them.

Specifically, the clients wanted an overview of local events and celebrations, the demographic make-up of the market, potential strategic alliances, major and minor sports teams and any celebrity ties to the market.

I’ll use the Web to connect with people, publications, government data, associations and other resources that will bring the clients up to speed in this market and help them make decisions.

I look forward to meeting you in Denver!

Marcy Phelps

Giving meaning to the term customer engagementBy Erik HauserSwivel Media Creative Director

“Giving Meaning to the Term Customer Engagement” will be 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., Tuesday, June 5. Here’s a pre-view from the presenter.

It is amazing how renaming something can lend epiphany-like clarity to a subject. This is certainly the case with experience marketing.

The term experience marketing can replace all other dis-cipline labels because it encompasses—well, everything. Everything we do as humans, good or bad, is an experi-ence.

Any interaction a customer has with your brand, product or service is an experience. Experience marketing is the basis of every marketing initiative undertaken by a com-pany.

As humans, we are byproducts of three things: our ge-netics, experiences and environments.

When smart marketers use the term experience, they take a giant step back and fully grasp the need for cus-tomers to have a seamless interaction with their market-ing and advertising initiatives.

Marketers see how integrated marketing efforts that are relevant and meaningful to their customers will lead cus-tomers to develop long-lasting relationships based on positive experiences with their brands.

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We are seeing the shift to marketing that engages cus-tomers in a positive dialogue that meets their needs and

desires, versus market-ing that pushes prod-ucts with monologue messaging.

Several companies have begun to not only grasp this shift, but also assign executives to address it intelli-

gently and boldly.

In this session, I’ll address the experien-

tial marketing methodology—the most powerful tool in the experience marketing arsenal.

I’ll show how and why experiential methodology is so im-portant in the changing marketing landscape, discussing case studies that highlight and examine how and when experience marketing has been done well as well as how it went horribly wrong.

You’ll leave the conference knowing how to evaluate your marketing plans with experiential platforms in mind. And I’ll look forward to staying after the presentation to address your individual questions.

Erik Hauser

DAM’s roundtablesure to be lively

By Julie-Ann ZilavyDAM Member

The roundtable will be 2:30-4 p.m., Tuesday, June 5. Here’s a pre-view from the modera-tor.

Nings, The Cassandra Report, Iconoculture, federated search en-gines, budget and em-

ployee cutbacks, ven-dor negotiations …

How do you keep up with our industry? Where can you get honest insight and evaluation of new products and

solutions to challenging research questions? Trade pub-lications, the Internet, listservs, blogs, networking, SLA?

The annual Advertising & Marketing Division’s Roundta-ble at the SLA conference has become a popular tradi-tion for information professionals to top openly discuss ics from researching biographical and financial informa-tion to the benefits of using Roper, Mintel, Thomson First Call, e-Marketer and SourceTV.

There are lively comments about how to increase your value within your organization while cutting back on sub-scriptions and/or resource sharing with other agencies in your network.

We cover the gamut. So come join us in Denver. Bring your tips, shortcuts, strategies and survival techniques for an enlightening discussion.

If you have topics to suggest, please email me at Julie@aaaa.org or call (212) 850-0809. See you in Denver!

New tools for handling reputation and risk

By Amelia KasselMarketingBase President

The DAM session “New Tools for Handling Reputation and Risk” will be 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m., Wednesday, June 6. Here’s a preview from the moderator.

Corporate reputation monitors emanate from three disci-plines—public relations, risk management and competi-tive intelligence. They are designed to help organizations know what is being said about their firm, and help them refute non-factual statements in the press and on the Web.

Knowing what people are saying and to whom, and un-derstanding the effect of the Web on how quickly and frequently this information is repeated is essential. Tools can help companies measure, manage and improve their reputations, all in an ethical and legal manner.

The evolution of news clipping services and the use of

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the Internet as a social networking tool have contributed to the development of reputation monitors.

Differences exist among the current reputation moni-tors—in terms of sources, frequency of scans, methodology of scans (automation vs. human interven-tion), their ability to “learn” and im-prove, search and deliver function-ality, flexibility, limitations placed on redistribution, and back-end support for further analysis.

In this session reputation monitors will be discussed by Andrew Bern-stein, CEO for Cymfony Inc., and Simon Bradstock., vice president

of corporate products for Dow Jones Inc.

Cymfony Inc. offers a leading corporate reputation moni-toring service used widely by public relation firms and professionals.

Bradstock will provide a very different perspective. Fac-tiva was one of the first “traditional” information content providers to employ corporate reputation moni-toring.

Bradstock will talk about how cor-porate reputation monitoring en-hanced the Factiva product and the firm’s search for the right product and partner to offer corporate repu-tation monitoring to its customers.

Many corporate reputation monitor-ing tools originated as clipping services, where every mention of a firm would be clipped and reviewed by management, with erroneous statements corrected.

Those services have evolved into ways of monitoring not just one company, but several, for different purposes. They serve as current awareness services that can be customized to track news concerning many companies (i.e., competitors), broadening ad hoc research efforts.

Those attending this session will:

• Learn what to look for in selecting a corporate reputation monitoring service

• Appreciate the array of tools available and de-termine those best suited to their situation

• Realize how the new tools can be used to diffuse rumors and refute false company and product

information• Understand how reputation monitors can work

with other back-end tools to help organizations make sense of what is gleaned from such tools

Simon Brad-stock

Andrew Bernstein

Consumer mindset and what that means for youBy Kathy SheehanGfK Roper Consulting Senior Vice President

“The Consumer Mindset and What that Means for You” will be 1-2:30 p.m., Wednesday, June 6. Here’s a preview of the DAM session from the fea-tured speaker.

For businesses to be success-ful and remain competitive, companies must not only un-derstand where their consum-ers are today, but where they

will be tomorrow.

While no one has a crystal ball, we can examine current consumer attitudes and behaviors, and through these insights develop hypotheses on where trends are moving and converging.

We also look at how larger, global, macro-environmental changes may influence consumers. For instance, how do U.S. consumers react when gas prices go above $3 a gallon?

We at GfK Roper are talking and listening to consumers on a continual basis. We interview more than 50,000 consumers globally each year with more than 20,000 in the United States.

Through both quantitative and qualitative methodologies, we can guide our clients to understand what is top of the mind with the consumer, what are the emerging “white spaces” within the consumer landscape and what are the unmet needs in the marketplace. Through this, we can help our clients identify new business opportunities.

We at GfK Roper refer to today’s consumer era as “The Third Age of Globalization,” which is about consumer power and empowerment.

The Third Age is all about the consumer. Today, global marketers are engaged in a dialogue with consumers. The days of talking to consumers in a unidirectional

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manner are long gone.

As a result, marketing in the Third Age requires a keen understanding of the world’s cultures and how they im-pact each other as well as global purchasing norms in each market.

This SLA session will explore the trends that are emerg-ing as a part of this consumer mindset and what they mean for business.

We will examine values-based trends, such as “Con-sumers in Control” and “Mobility–Life on the Go” and provide examples of how today’s empowered consumers have the self-confidence to demand products that meet their exacting specifications.

We will also discuss the rise in the paradoxes we see in consumers’ behaviors, which are in many ways a direct reflection of this empowerment and self-confidence. We will see how within these paradoxes, there exists a myr-iad of opportunities for businesses.

Member news Krista Garcia joined the eMarketer Research Department in February. eMarketer aggregates and analyzes Internet, e-business, online marketing and media information from more than 2,800 sources, and brings it together in analyst reports, daily research articles and a comprehensive da-tabase of statistics.

Krista provides research support for the analysts and maintains the eStat database with consumer, e-commerce and IT content. She has previously worked at Hill & Knowlton and Young & Rubicam and has been an SLA member for four years. Krista is also a freelance food writer whose work has appeared in the New York Post, Time Out New York's Eating & Drinking Guide, nymag.com and Latina.com.

Tesse Santoro recently left her role as account manager at Thomson/Dialog to shift jobs once again. Tesse has joined InfoCurrent as a senior recruiter.

InfoCurrent (www.infocurrent.com) specializes in job placements in the information industry. Tesse saw the change as the next logical career step.

She writes, “I had been doing product marketing and sales for years. It really seemed to make sense to get down to the real basics of the individual sale and get in-volved in marketing a personal brand. What is a resume

but a 30-second ad? “

Tesse is covering the New York tri-state area, but is also working on positions throughout the country. Tesse will be at SLA Denver representing her new company. Drop by and visit the InfoCurrent booth.

In memoriamNancy Terry Munger, a long-time SLA member and for-mer DAM chair, died March 26. The resident of Middle-bury, Conn., was 78.

Born Sept. 22, 1928, in Waterbury, Conn., Ms. Munger had a 28-year career in advertising, retiring in 1986 as vice president and manager of information services with the J. Walter Thompson Co. in New York City.

She joined SLA in 1958 and chaired DAM from 1966-67 and was president of the New York Chapter.

Ms. Munger received SLA’S John Cotton Dana Award in 1987, which recognized a lifetime of achievement as well as beyond exceptional service to special librarianship. From the New York Chapter, she received the Distin-guished Service Award in 1986.

According to the Summer 1987 issue of Special Libraries at www.sla.org/speciallibraries/ISSN00386723V78N3.PDF, “In 1975, Ms. Munger achieved the first of many notable firsts – she became the first female librarian in an adver-tising agency to be named a vice present.”

As part of a joint venture with The New York Times, Mun-ger assisted in the development of the Advertising and Marketing Intelligence Service, the first online biblio-graphic database focusing on advertising, marketing and communications.

DAM BulletinThe DAM Bulletin is the newsletter of SLA’s Division of Advertising and Marketing. The publication is pub-lished online twice a year at www.sla.org/dam. Please send your comments and contributions to Editor Dru Frykberg at dru.frykberg@state.mn.us.

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DAM at 65:Members reflect on changes in professionBy Vicki StaniszewskiDAM Past Chair

As part of our division’s 65th anniver-sary, long-time members were con-tacted for their thoughts on changes in the profession.

Nearly 20 people were identified as being members of the Advertising and Marketing Division for 30 or more years–longer than some of our mem-bers have been on this planet! The changes they described fall into two categories: communication methods and research tools.

Thirty or more years ago, clients ac-tually came to special libraries or made contact by phone (or their sec-retaries did) and sometimes projects were even mailed via the U.S. Postal Service.

These methods have been super-seded by Federal Express, fax, e-mail and text messaging although the telephone, especially the ubiquitous cell phone, remains widely used.

There are many positives about the new forms of communication. It is possible to get to know clients via e-mail, and the occasional phone calls and e-mails may force library users to organize their thoughts into coherent requests.

But the age of instant contact has burdened librarians with a demand for instant results, a trend that brought this comment from Marsha Appel of the AAAA, “I still remember feeling pressure to get a project done by the end of day to overnight mate-rial by Federal Express. That seems like a luxury now, with members at

DAM celebrates 65 years of history, accomplishmentsBy Robin FeuersteinDAM Archivist

Going through the archives in search of fodder for a brief history of DAM has convinced me we ought to raise our glasses and toast our fine division, which, presumably, we will be doing shortly in Denver!

While I can recall some highlights of my 20-plus years with DAM, I have unearthed some fascinating endeavors of the advertising, mar-keting and media information professionals who came before us.

The division was established in the fall of 1942; hence, we are celebrating our 65th anni-versary. But did you know there were activist advertising librarians advancing our causes well before then?

Early history & DAM founder Mary Louise Alexander

We can look back as far as 1923 when, according to Ed Strable in the Win-ter 1987 DAM Bulletin (part of a multi-issue article on the history of DAM), Mary Louise Alexander, director of research at a precursor to BBDO started the first advertising group in SLA, the Advertising-Industrial Commercial Group.

In the September/October 1921 issue of Special Libraries, Alexander re-ported of 1,200 or more agencies in the United States (250 in New York City) only four had libraries: BDO, the Batten Co. (the other B in BBDO prior to the merger), JWT (where she first worked) and the MacMartin Agency in Minneapolis.

Throughout her career, Alexander spoke on the value of agency libraries. She also arranged for Bruce Barton (the original B in BBDO) to speak during the banquet at the 1923 annual conference and for Paul T. Cherington, di-rector of research at JWT, to speak at the 1926 conference.

She chaired numerous groups in SLA, rising to the top as two-time president (the first ad agency librarian to hold the office). Alexander held other inter-esting jobs along the way, including special assistant to Eleanor Roosevelt. Alexander retired in 1965 and was elected to the SLA Hall of Fame in 1966. She died in 1976. We are greatly indebted to Mary Louise Alexander, our founding mother, so to speak!

1940s

The precursor to DAM was established in the fall of 1942 with 63 members. That number nearly doubled by the next year, and more than doubled again by 1951 with 258 members. Con’t p. 10

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their computer screens expecting in-stantaneous answers!”

Information used to be found only in print sources and often involved tedi-ously searching through giant vol-umes (think Red Book, SRDS or PIB before they became available online).

Our older members remember using vertical files they assembled by read-ing and clipping magazine and news-paper articles.

Business Periodicals Index and Reader’s Guide (a Wilson blast from the past!) were used to find articles not available in the files. It was com-mon to telephone likely sources and spend hours in research libraries try-ing to find a piece of information you could probably discover in a matter of minutes on the Internet today.

All of this, of course, was in the years BC (before computers). Computers did not change library work right away–the initial giant boxes were not made available to libraries and would not have fit in some libraries.

For many members, their first work computers were the stand-alone New York Times Information Bank termi-nals introduced in 1978 that con-nected library searchers to larger computers dial-up phone lines. Con’t p. 11

Virginia Ferestad, a 40-year veteran of Campbell Mithun in Minneapolis, is surrounded by the contents of vertical files. Courtesy photo.

The earliest chairs were from McCann-Erickson, Campbell-Ewald, Foote Cone & Belding, Benton & Bowles, McKinsey, and Consumers Union (there were several others, but they probably wouldn’t be much recognized today).

The DAM Bulletin followed in 1943. And “What’s New,” a subscription publi-cation that described new resources of interest to advertising and marketing librarians and was published until fairly recently, began in 1946 (well, actu-ally it began life earlier as a publication by the SLA Illinois Chapter) and had 161 subscribers by the 1950s.

An interesting and proactive endeavor began in 1945 when what was then called the Advertising Section of SLA’s New York Chapter gave a series of courses in advertising sources. The classes were to train paraprofessionals and assistants in advertising libraries. Librarians pooled their talents and presented 10 sessions held in the library of the instructor. This went on for several years.

1950s

1951 ushered in another watershed event. Delphine Humphrey of the Adver-tising Division, as it was now called, along with eight other New York City ad agency librarians hosted sessions devoted to the ad agency library at the Eastern Annual Conference of the AAAA.

They featured speakers from different departments of various agencies to discuss how each department used the agency library services.

Another session featured a panel of librarians. The January 1952 issue of Special Libraries was devoted to printing the seven speeches given at the conference and congratulated the group on promoting ad agency libraries.

The conference was also covered in the December 1951 issue of Advertis-ing Agency, then a must-read trade publication.

The AAAA provided transcripts of the speeches to their members. The litera-ture generated by this conference was among the earliest on the subject of ad agency libraries.

On the lighter side, in the 50s and again in the 70s, the bulletin ran a trivia column of unanswerable reference questions, such as:

• How much chocolate milk is consumed in the U.S.?• Where can I find info on the doggie bag market in the U.S.?• How many people are paid on the 15th and 30th of the month?• How many members are in the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band?• What is the total U.S. flea population?

1960s

More excellent publicity for the division and profession occurred when Eliza-beth Smith of Campbell-Ewald detailed her successful promotion of National Library Week in the March 1962 issue of Special Libraries.

In 1963, the new “What’s New” board was announced in The New York Times, New York Herald Tribune and Advertising Age. And in 1964, DAM

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Early computer database searching was nothing like the “free text” searching we’re so used to today.

Researchers had to use specific vo-cabularies or get very strange results, as one long-term member re-called,“Early days of online searching produced some pretty funny results since you got exactly what you asked for. Researching a question on trends in the birth rate in the U.S. for the past 50 years, I neglected to indicate human birth rate and saw results on birth rates of hogs, horses and nu-merous other animals.”

By the late 90s, PCs with Internet ac-cess were on desktops in most U.S. companies and the age of “do-it-yourself” research began, especially when Google appeared on the scene.

The Internet has changed not just libraries but American business. It has ushered in an age of instantly available information. This has meant many changes for advertising and marketing librarians.

But long-time members remind us basic librarian skills still apply in this high-tech world. Common sense and curiosity go a long way to organizing, clarifying and fulfilling information re-quests.

And seasoned members remind us how lucky we are to have jobs where no two days are alike and we learn new things every day.

AAAA staff members Marsha Appel and Katie Ferris, seated, and Marilyn Bockman, standing, use The New York Times Information Bank terminal in 1979. Courtesy photo.

wrote SLA’s “Subject Headings in Advertising, Marketing and Communica-tions Media.”

The April 1969 bulletin covered Canadian advertising sources and ad agency libraries.

1970s

Perhaps our predecessors were a bit burned out from the swinging 60s as the 70s, at least from what can be gleaned from the bulletins, were devoid of major DAM activities.

The bulletins were short, often confined to news of upcoming and recently attended conferences, membership directories and bibliographies.

There was an interesting juxtaposition of articles published three years apart. In 1973, Elizabeth Smith of Campbell-Ewald ran a detailed description of her library’s vertical files (ah, remember the days).

Just three years later, Duane R. Day of the General Mills library glowingly wrote of the wonders of online databases, particularly The New York Times Information Bank.

That seems to say it all for the 70s as many of us who are still around to tell of it experienced the magic of online (you had to be there to see how this revolutionized the information profession).

1980s

The 80s were about public relations. Several DAM members were active with SLA headquarters in steering the association’s public relations policy.

One of the highlights of these efforts was the Summer 1991 issue of Special Libraries that was devoted to “Public Relations in Special Libraries.”

Our own Holly Bussey, a former DAM chair, contributed an article and edited the issue. Holly was subsequently honored by SLA for her work in public relations, which included spearheading SLA’s marketing and media plan, leading a CE course in PR at conference and making various presentations.

In addition, DAM members Holly Rutkowski, Gretchen Reed and many oth-ers gave generously of their time and brainpower.

The 80s brought fine moments for DAM as many of us worked with vendors of online ad-vertising databases such as The New York Times Information Bank’s AMI and Predicast’s MARS. It was worth the effort to have data-bases specific to our industry.

DAM members also worked with LexisNexis as part of an indexing advisory group, and partici-pated in focus groups and advisory panels for other vendors in the online community.

1990s

In 1991, DAM members Gretchen Reed, Bert

Grace Villamora presents DAM’s first Award of Merit to Holly Rutkowski in 1992.

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Schachter and Eric Halvorson contributed to the SLA publication “Tools of the Profession.”

Speaking of publications, Gretchen Reed, another former DAM chair, was involved with advertising publications such as the 1999 update of the AAAA pamphlet “What Every Account Executive Should Know about Agency In-formation Centers.” It is the gold standard on ad agency library services. She also created a publication on international advertising and marketing

sources, and was involved in SLA head-quarter activities for many years.

In 1992, we celebrated our 50th anniversary at the annual conference in San Francisco with a commemorative poster (thanks again to Gretchen), a champagne toast and a big delicious sheet cake! And we presented our first Award of Merit to Holly Rutkowski.

And on a fun note, in 1994 former DAM Chair Jenny Mueller-Alexander performed a belly dance at a relaxation session at the annual conference. I would venture to guess it was the first time such an event took place, and no surprise it took place during a DAM session.

In the 90s we introduced the “Ad Agency Roundtable” at the annual conference and it’s been a smash ever since, drawing a mix of about 30 attendees each year.

21st century

Highlights of the 21st century include (I’ll be brief to leave this to future archivists as this sort of stuff is better with perspective):

• Surely, one of our finest moments came in 2003 when long-time member Grace Villamora recruited several of us for the book “Super Searchers on Madison Avenue”

• A revamped, snazzy DAM Web site, including a Community of Prac-tice area

• The DAM listserv where our colleagues help answer those near-impossible questions

• And in 2004, we introduced our new logo

We encourage all readers, especially newer DAM members, to get involved making meaningful contributions to the world of ad agency information for the advertising information specialists who will follow us!

Author’s note: I am indebted to Ed Strable and the late Mary Margaret Re-gan for the histories of DAM that they’ve written.

A poster commemorating DAM’s 50th year in 1992 was designed by member Gretchen Reed.

Alexa tracks Web trafficBy Stephen FlemingDAM Web Master

Do you ever need to know the Inter-net traffic share for a product? That is, how many people visit one Web site versus another?

Alexa has a great free tool for tracking Web site traffic at www.alexa.com/site/ds/top_500?qterm.

While Alexa doesn’t report the actual number of users, it does show the relative number of users, compared to overall Internet traffic. You can gener-ate a chart for any Web site, big or small.

These charts are helpful for monitor-ing usage patterns over time. For in-stance, you can track traffic by week, month or year.

Alexa also reports the reach of each site; that is the percentage of overall Internet traffic that went to the site. While these percentages may look low for most sites, the value of these statistics is in seeing changes over time.

Alexa also shows how many pages each user was viewing, and whether that number has changed for better or worse.

Also helpful is reach by geographic region as well as a list of other sites that users go to.

Perhaps most helpful is Alexa’s tool for comparing traffic statistics be-tween Web sites, such as for Gator-ade, Accelerade and Powerade:

Best of all, Alexa is free! So if you don’t subscribe to Nielsen NetRat-ings, or are just looking for something different, check it out.

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