All Members Community

Hello,

At my institution, we are thinking about printing a brochure/pamphlet with information about each of the scientific plaforms. As I was preparing my part, I realized that all of that information is already on our website, and that a printed version would be less flexible. Is it worth the effort?

What experiences have other people made with printed info material for your cores? Do clients appreciate having something printed (= tangible), or do you find that online content is more appropriate?

Thank you for your input!

Elke

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Elke Kuster-Schock
Microscopy platform manager
CHU Sainte-Justine Research Centre
Montréal QC
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Elke,

I do have a one-page printed material about my Core Facility. I have seen several other Core Facilities distribute them during open houses and keep them on their tables at meetings and workshops.

My personal view is that it is always better to have more than one way to reach your customers, since they are a diverse group of people. There may be instances where you may not be able to talk to all those want to reach out to you, say at a meeting or during your busy work schedule when you are working with another client. With so much information on the Internet, even "Google" search doesn't always give you the desired results.

So, as long as the cost of producing the paper material is not prohibitive, it is worth making it. One caveat though, it is difficult to keep them updated.

Thanks.

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Thayumanasamy Somasundaram
Senior Research Associate
Florida State University
Tallahassee FL
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We have a tri-fold brochure that very generically describes our services and has a graphic that shows a possible work flow through our complicated group.  We often have a table at events like new faculty orientation, our precision medicine conference or our postdoc BBQ and it gives us something to hand to them to take back from the event.  The central graphic often helps with talking through the services people can access through our facility.  I'm happy to post it if you would like to see it.  We have learned to keep it very generic and not discuss specific instrumentation, as that changes so rapidly in the genomics field.

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Roxann Ashworth
Laboratory Director
Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore MD
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Hi Elke,

We use a glossy printed folder with inserts.  This allows us to save money on the folder purchase, and we can update the inserts as needed to represent the facilities and services.  I also think having printed and online resources is a good idea, they work well for different audiences and circumstances. 

Best,

Tami

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Tami Magnus
Executive Director
Cornell University, Institute of Biotechnology
Ithaca NY
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Original Message:
Sent: 8/18/2023 12:01:00 PM
From: Amy Gilman
Subject: RE: Value of printed core information pamphlets

Hi Elke,

We are running a similar sort of drill at our institution. We've recently brought four separate cores/shared resources together earlier this year into one work space in a new building, under one collective umbrella and want to highlight those changes and explain the concept behind the model as well as the synergy and collaboration it is bringing about.  In our case, we had a few new things to share out and want a piece of collateral as a take away to hand-out for interested external companies or institutions, a take-away for tours that we give in our new space, and to potential donors that may have interest in supporting or giving back to their love of research and science. We are doing a short print run, to keep costs down and so that if items get dated or change we won't be working with outdated brochures.

 

The way we will interplay the two, the brochure and the website, is to have the short link on the bottom of each page and the QR code to the full website on the brochure. Then on the website we will have the full pdf of the finished brochure, so no matter where someone begins their inquiry to us (web or brochure), they will get the same information. Obviously, the website can hold so much more information and changes be made and updated on very short notice. I still see value for using both.

 

Each institution is individual and needs to consider all the ways or reasons someone might be learning of their area or dept. I hope that is helpful and that I articulated our situation clearly.

 

Amy

 

Amy Gilman (she/her)

CBSR Administrative Support

University of Vermont -Center for Biomedical Shared Resources

149 Beaumont Ave, FMRB 150A

Burlington, VT 05405

(802) 656-0813

https://www.med.uvm.edu/cbsr

 

 

We too have one pagers for each of our core facilities, for handing out at orientations, open houses, and at our annual new faculty reception.  We keep them high level and focused on applications rather than instrumentation, so we don't have to update them so often. Each flyer also has a QR code which directs people to the core website for more detailed information.

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Natasha Nikolaidis
Associate Director of Operations
Purdue University
West Lafayette IN
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Hello,

Lots of good points and thoughts that I can carry into the discussion for our printed material.

Thank you to everyone who weighed in on this topic!

Elke

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Elke Kuster-Schock
Microscopy platform manager
CHU Sainte-Justine Research Centre
Montréal QC
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The first web design we made for a microscopy core (back in 1995) was a list of all our instruments on the landing page with 2 or 3 sentences broadly outlining applications for each instrument.  The idea was that it could also be printed to be used as a handout or used in a grant application as an appendix.  Yes, there were links to policies and protocols, but the idea was to give an overview in one or two pages that worked well on the web, as a tool for insertion into grant applications, and as a replacement for the trifold brochure. This was another good aspect of having the landing webpage be printer (and later PDF) friendly, ease of updating.  And this is why I argue against formal printing; within hours of it coming off the press, you will need to make changes.  Something that comes out of a laser printer ad hoc is far better.
So I still think there is value in being able to meet all three of these goals with a single web page.  But being phone formatted friendly too with a posted QR code is paramount now.

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Michael Cammer
Sr. Research Scientist
NYU School of Medicine Langone Medical Center
New York NY
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