University Times

The University Library System (ULS) is introducing a new mark in a branding effort that seeks to make ULS communications consistent and instantly identifiable.

The new mark, featuring a deep red color in addition to Pitt’s blue and gold, will appear on everything from lapel pins to the ULS web site. Faculty members will begin seeing the new mark on postcards touting library services that are targeted to begin arriving in mailboxes in February.

“This will help us systematically communicate our message,” said ULS director Rush G. Miller.

“The library changes so quickly and rapidly because we’re so on the cutting edge,” said Julie M. Seavy, ULS director of library advancement. “We need to make people aware of the advancements we’re making.”

ULS representatives have been working with a local communications firm to develop strategies on how to get the word out to everyone from faculty and student library users to the library’s professional peers.

“We had always communicated in all kinds of ways, but never in accord with a strategic plan,” Miller said.

The mark is part of a broader plan to focus ULS messages and get recipients — particularly those within the University community — to sit up and take notice. Efforts to communicate with faculty members through newsletters proved ineffective and other methods have been haphazard, Miller said.

The new plan, which emphasizes internal communications, will send consistent messages to faculty periodically in the form of postcards featuring single-issue blurbs about ULS services.

—Kimberly K. Barlow