Discovery Day was started at the Penn State University Libraries in 2006 in response to staff desires to become more familiar with the services and processes of other departments to better serve patrons as well as to advance personal and professional development and to create a more positive work environment. Discovery Day is an annual full day, conference style in-service program with multiple concurrent workshops drawing on local talent; provides coffee and snacks in a common area; and offers a mix of professional and personal interest topics for @ 250 people for $1,500.
Discovery Day at the University Libraries is planned by a committee of 12-15 people consisting of a Project Manager and four groups in charge of Programming, Publicity, Hospitality & Registration. The planning process typically takes four to five months from start to finish. A typical planning schedule can be viewed on the Suggested Timeline Page.
The powerpoint presentation of "Staff Development on a Shoestring" can be downloaded for viewing here: (ppt - 22MB)
The final, Futurecasting portion of "Staff Development on a Shoestring" was created and presented using Prezi. Prezi is a cloud-based presentation software that uses a zoomable canvas. The theory behind Prezi is that ideas are not linear, but are groupings of interconnected concepts. It allows creation of non-linear presentations by zooming into and out of a visual map, emphasizing "big-picture" concepts, while still displaying supporting details. Since Prezi is web-based, presentations can be viewed by anyone, anywhere with a webbrowser. Viewers can also leave comments and questions.
Using it for Futurecasting connotes a forward-thinking Discovery Day which seeks to continuously improve its staff development program.
The final, Futurecasting portion of "Staff Development on a Shoestring" via Prezi can be viewed here: http://bit.ly/DDprezi
The planning process typically takes four to five months from start to finish. A typical planning schedule can be viewed on the Suggested Timeline Page.
Part of any successful event is publicity. Here are some examples of various ways we've publicized our event over the years.
Website:
We maintain this website to publicize and inform our employees about what we do each year. We are also trying to archive as many of the presentations, posters, handouts, etc. as possible.
E-mail and Newsletter:
The Libraries maintain ListServs that make it easy to publicize Discovery Day with emails that reach every employee in every department. The Libraries also have a weekly newsletter The Interview that is sent out every week to publicize all comings and goings in all of our departments and locations. The Interview is emailed every Monday and our publicity group usually sends out another email nudge on Thursdays giving us two times each week to inform all of our employees when we are seeking proposals, opening registration as well as plugging individual presentations.
An example of The Interview can be downloaded here: (pdf - 1.4MB)
Posters:
Our Publicity group also creates and distributes a promotional poster to each department to be displayed in work areas and break rooms.
An example of a promotional poster can be downloaded here: (pdf - 2.4MB)
Schedules:
While the schedule is always posted on our website, it is important that participants can readily view the schedule during the event. The Publicity group creates a large poster of the schedule to be displayed next to our registration table as well as a smaller, printable schedule that can be downloaded from our website.
An example of a large schedule poster can be downloaded here: (pdf - 110KB)
An example of a small printable schedule can be downloaded here: (pdf - 503KB)
