What is it: The Outreach Inspiration Bank is a shared, open-source repository of outreach activities built through contributions from practitioners in our field. It is designed to provide a broad set of real-world examples that reflect the diverse institutional contexts, audiences, and levels of complexity encountered in special collections and archival outreach work. This living document is intended to complement the newly revised guidelines on Strategies for Successful, Sustainable, and Scalable Outreach (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zTazkc1tDrgjPUEViFUsxgeHkQiR2juTUrVIxrOVQmw/edit?usp=sharing).
Whether you have developed an innovative social media campaign, an interactive pop-up event, or an adaptable digital learning object, your practical examples and insights are invaluable to building a resource that supports and inspires our community.
How to Get Involved:
- Contribute Your Activities: You can submit your outreach activity details, plans, and examples using our submission form: Contribute to the Inspiration Bank.
- View the Repository: You can explore the growing collection of entries and browse for ideas via the live repository tracking sheet: See the Outreach Inspiration Bank Spreadsheet.
Thank you in advance for sharing your expertise and helping us build a robust, sustainable resource for practitioners across the community!
Why was it created: This inspiration bank was created in response to feedback on the Outreach Strategies document presented at RBMS in 2025. Based on community feedback suggesting the document needed further examples, we have started this community-driven resource to enable sharing of outreach events and examples.