Toronto Public Library Approves Plan to Begin Selling Advertisements, First Up Will Be Ads on Due-Date Slips

UPDATE: The plan that’s described in the post and primary document below was approved last night (February 27, 2012) by the Toronto Public Library Board.
via Torontoist:

At its meeting tonight, the TPL board will consider a proposal to create an advertising policy for Toronto’s libraries. The reason such a policy doesn’t already exist is that the library system hasn’t needed one: TPL sells some ads in its printed program guides, but otherwise it has only ever allowed sponsorships.
The idea would be to start slowly, by hiring a contractor to sell ads that would be printed on the backs of due-date slips. With that accomplished, the library would hire a consultant to look for other advertising-sales opportunities that would, in the words of library staff, “maximize revenue and minimize impacts to the delivery of core library services.”

The Toronto Public Library is the busiest urban public library system in the world.
Read the Complete Article
See Also: Full Text of Toronto Public Library Advertising Policy (9 pages; PDF)
See Also: Environmental Scan of Advertising Policies At Libraries in Canada and U.S. (via Toronto Public Library)

Filed under: Libraries, Public Libraries