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Library communications coordinator outlines refreshed branding and new outreach pushes
Summary
Cecil Resty, the library’s communications and marketing coordinator, presented a year of refreshed materials, a unified brand tied to the City of Santa Monica palette, expanded automated notices and trials of catalog promotions and local-business partnerships.
Cecil Resty, communications and marketing coordinator for the library, told the Santa Monica Public Library Board and Friends that his first year on the job focused on unifying the system’s look and voice and modernizing how the library promotes events and services. “Thank you. Hi everyone. I’m Cecil Resty. I’m the communications and marketing coordinator here at the library,” he said, opening a slide deck showing the previous and refreshed designs.
Resty said the refresh preserves the system’s core color palette but swaps a dated tan for a new city-aligned blue and standardizes fonts, event graphics and branch signage so materials present a single, recognizable identity across locations. “The role, the focus, the purpose of my role is to develop a unified voice, look and feel for the library system,” he said. The changes include new newsletter templates and streamlined hold and renewal notices designed to work better on mobile.
Staff are also experimenting with BiblioCommons features to surface events and promos inside the online catalog. Resty described a pilot of “Biblio Promotions” that highlights events (the catalog currently shows Santa Monica Reads promotions) and said the library’s automated notices are linked to its integrated library system so recommendation content can be tailored to patrons’ checkouts.
The coordinator reviewed outreach tools beyond email: a media wall at branches that runs event slides, printed monthly calendars, and a community-discount program launched last September that gives partners discounts to library-card holders. He said the discount partners will be highlighted monthly across newsletter, social channels and in-branch signage and that staff plan pop-up outreach events with partner businesses.
In response to board questions, Resty said the newsletter is opt-in and the mailing list includes roughly 55,000 addresses with about 40,000 successful deliveries after bounces; he added that automated patron notices (holds/renewals) have higher open rates than the general newsletter. Resty listed the library’s social platforms (Facebook, X, Instagram, TikTok, BlueSky and a YouTube page) and said Instagram currently shows the strongest engagement.
Next steps: staff will continue trials with BiblioCommons, coordinate promotional calendars with the Office of Communications, and develop a direct-mail push for new residents as part of a broader effort to increase library-card signups and attendance.
