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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to describe how librarians used elements of market research, advertising and media literacy in a personal finance class. Design/methodology/approach Librarians each semester guest lecture one session in a personal finance class “Foundations of Money Education.” Through this class, librarians present engaging material about market research and advertising in an effort to encourage students to think about how these external forces influence their spending behavior. Findings Students appreciate learning about advertising through the engaging use of commercials. While responses were mixed as to the applicability of the topic, the majority of students agreed that the topic was a worthwhile addition to the personal finance curriculum. Originality/value Topics such as budgets, savings, and mortgages are typically taught in personal finance classes. Teaching information about market research and advertising is a topic that is usually not covered in a personal finance class.

Purpose The purpose of this report is to explain the process of how Booth Library developed an online WordPress blog to market physical and electronic resources in the library’s collection. This report looks at specific tools that are used to maintain the blog and sample topics that the blog covers. Design/methodology/approach WordPress software was installed on library servers, making the blog a cohesive part of the library’s website. A PHP script called “List It!” was developed to produce book lists with cover images from a list of scanned library barcodes. After the book lists are inserted into blog posts, social media tools such as YOURLS and Hootsuite are used to schedule tweets and Facebook posts. Findings Since its launch in September 2014, Ref News has received a total of 6,180 views and 3,835 unique views for 88 posts. On average, users are spending two minutes and 44 seconds on a page or group of pages. Less measurable benefits include greatly expanded website content, booklists that can be reused and repurposed and a sense of ownership and increased morale for those who help curate book displays and write blog posts. Originality/value This report shows how a free WordPress blog can be used as a versatile and collaborative tool to market library resources and connect with users.