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How King County Library System Made Curiosity Impossible to Ignore

**Alt text:** A black-and-white historic photo of a library interior with tall windows, hanging light fixtures, bookshelves, and a large wooden service desk where several people are working and browsing. A translucent gray text box at the top reads, “Library Share Secrets to SUCCESSFUL BRANDING CAMPAIGN,” with “SUCCESSFUL BRANDING CAMPAIGN” in large yellow letters.
Photo courtesy of Cincinnati & Hamilton County Public Library

“Curiosity Isn’t Quiet” helped King County Library System rethink what library marketing can look like. And the results are remarkable!

Libraries spend a lot of time talking to people who already love libraries. King County Library System wanted to do something different.

KCLS serves more than 1.6 million residents through 50 libraries just outside Seattle. But after several leadership changes and turnover within its Communications and Marketing department, the organization saw an opportunity to rethink how it told its story.

The goal wasn’t simply to promote programs or convince existing patrons to attend another event. It was to get people who hadn’t visited a library in years — or perhaps had never visited at all — to reconsider what a public library could offer them.

So KCLS embarked on a campaign built around a deceptively simple idea:

Curiosity Isn’t Quiet.

And the results? Chase Gallager, Director of Communications and Marketing at KCLS, says, “A 22-point jump in brand awareness across non-members. And among our members, they were increasingly convinced that their public investment is worth it.”

“For an institution serving 1.5 million people across King County, those aren’t vanity metrics. That’s people rediscovering something they’ve forgotten was theirs.”

Chase was gracious enough to share how his library did it, so you can replicate this at your library.

Starting With a Question

The campaign began in September 2024 with a question that plagues many libraries: What do people who aren’t library users actually know about us?

KCLS wanted to reconnect with its community and “reinvigorate our marketing with a fresh campaign to drive awareness of KCLS and reconnect with our patrons.”

But the team didn’t want to rely on assumptions about what the community knew or didn’t know about the library. So they did some research.

KCLS surveyed both patrons and non-patrons to establish a baseline for brand awareness and awareness of specific library services. That research helped the team identify opportunities to showcase services that people might not associate with a modern public library.

As part of the campaign development process, KCLS brought together leadership and staff from across the organization for brainstorming sessions. The goal was to make a list of everything the library does for its community.

“Starting with leadership and staff from around the organization, we held brainstorming sessions to chart out all the things that our libraries do every day for patrons,” recalls Chase.

Chase says the collaborative process did more than generate ideas. It built trust and support internally for the campaign’s development.

That turned out to be important because KCLS wasn’t simply creating a new advertising campaign. It was changing the way the organization thought about marketing.

Meet “Curiosity Isn’t Quiet”

Eventually, the team landed on “Curiosity Isn’t Quiet.” The line works on several levels.

It plays with the traditional image of the library as a place where everyone is expected to whisper. But it also reframes curiosity as something active, energetic, and even a little disruptive.

Chase says that ultimately, the campaign became “both a playfully tongue-in-cheek reference to the hushed library hallways of the past, and an invitation to our audience to be bold and inquisitive.”

Marketing to People Who Aren’t Already Library Users

One of the biggest strategic decisions Chase and his team made was to focus on people who weren’t already regular library users.

That meant the library couldn’t simply rely on the channels and messages it had traditionally used to communicate with existing patrons. It needed to compete for attention.

Chase said the messaging was designed to reach people “who hadn’t set foot in a branch in years, maybe ever.”

“Surgically Targeted” Advertising

KCLS has historically spent an average of about $327,000 a year on advertising since 2022. That sounds like a lot to many libraries (including mine!), but it comes out to roughly $0.25 per person in its service area.

For “Curiosity Isn’t Quiet,” the team decided to make that money work harder. Rather than primarily boosting organic social media content or relying on broad-reach broadcast advertising, KCLS shifted to a social, video-first strategy.

“We worked to develop thoughtful targeting focused on our service area, as opposed to broadcast mediums that had historically spread our advertising dollars too thin.”

Chase says the library used more efficient ad types that are favored by the algorithms.

The result? KCLS cut the cost of its digital advertising by 66 percent, meaning the library could reach far more people without increasing its advertising budget. That’s a pretty compelling argument for being more strategic about who sees your advertising.

And the campaign wasn’t just about paid media. KCLS also brought in a new social media strategist shortly after the campaign launched.

“She brought fresh thinking and smart strategy to our social content,” says Chase.

The combination of targeted advertising and a stronger organic social strategy helped drive rapid growth in social engagement, including more than 50 percent growth on Instagram during the year.

The Number That Should Get Your Attention

The headline result from the campaign was dramatic: Brand awareness among non-members increased by 22 points.

That number came from comparing the baseline brand survey conducted at the beginning of the campaign with another survey conducted nearly a year later.

Because brand awareness is the central objective, Chase and his team plan to continue monitoring perception, awareness of specific library services, and other measures through additional surveys.

The Library Card Became a Piece of Art

One of the most delightful parts of the campaign was a completely different kind of marketing opportunity: the library card.

Many of KCLS’s library card designs were more than a decade old. So, the library partnered with local artists to create seven new library card designs. The team created video interviews with each artist, giving patrons a chance to hear the stories and perspectives behind the artwork. 

The response was outstanding: The new cards depleted KCLS’s annual supply in just a few months.

New library cards are sometimes treated as a marketing gimmick. But here’s Chase and his team have to say about that.

“There isn’t always going to be a return on investment on revamping library cards,” says Chase. “Seeing smiling patrons with their new miniature pieces of art will always win us over.”

Curiosity Became a Summer Reading Strategy

The “Curiosity Isn’t Quiet” campaign didn’t stay confined to advertising.

KCLS used one of the concepts developed during the campaign — “Curious Creatures” — as the foundation for a new kids’ summer reading program. The library reconsidered its reading incentives and introduced a branded Welcome Kit box as part of the experience.

The results were striking. In 2024, KCLS had approximately 12,000 summer reading finishers across the system. In 2025, more than 30,000 readers had signed up, with the numbers continuing to grow through the end of July. That’s more than double the previous year’s number.

And it illustrates something important: A strong brand idea can become a platform for many different campaigns and initiatives.

Not Everything Went Smoothly

Of course, even a highly successful campaign comes with challenges. For KCLS, one of the biggest was production.

“Internally producing creative requires a lot of planning, and often we ran up against deadlines,” remembers Chase.

As a small internal team, maintaining the production pipeline remains a challenge. The library is now looking for ways to improve that process and stay ahead of deadlines. 

There was also some internal confusion about the campaign itself. In particular, some staff members thought the “Curiosity Isn’t Quiet” icon was the library’s new logo.

I can relate to that problem, and it highlights an important lesson for libraries considering a major brand campaign: Changing how you market externally can also require significant internal communication.

When you’re introducing a new visual identity for a campaign, staff need to understand what it is, what it isn’t, and how it fits into the larger organizational brand.

“It’s a challenge to break preconceived notions, internally and externally,” admits Chase. “Often it takes a team working together to show a new path forward for library marketing.” 

“We have learned to think big, lean into the sparks of creativity that come from brainstorming, and give new things a shot.”

The Most Important Result Might Be Hard to Measure

The numbers are impressive. But Chase says some of the best results aren’t numbers at all.

“We’ve seen a rapid increase in social engagement,” he points out. “It’s getting such amazing feedback and joy from our patrons with their new library cards, or spotting the campaign in the wild.”

To me, that’s the amazing part. Because it’s one thing for someone to see an ad because you paid to put it in front of them. It’s another thing for them to recognize your campaign when they encounter it in an unexpected place. And that recognition is exactly what brand awareness is supposed to accomplish!

What Other Libraries Can Learn From This Campaign

So what should another library do if it wants to move beyond promoting individual programs and start building a true brand campaign? Chase says, you have to start with the library staff.

“Start internally to build excitement and gain alignment with staff, especially in organizations absent other cohesive marketing campaigns,” he advises.

What I learned from writing this post is: Curiosity isn’t quiet. And neither is a library brand that knows what it wants to say.

Don’t forget to take part in the 2027 State of Library Marketing Survey! You only have a few more days to enter your answers. Results will be published January 4, 2027, and will inform the contents of this blog for the next year!

Take the survey

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Here’s a 12 Month Promotional Campaign Plan To Skyrocket Database Usage at Your Library

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March Meowness: How Cat Photos Forgave Library Fees and Won Hearts Worldwide

Photo courtesy Cincinnati and Hamilton County Public Library

When she was growing up in Leicester, Massachusetts, Linnea Sheldon found the library to be… boring.

“While I enjoyed reading and admired the librarians, the library itself didn’t feel very exciting,” confesses Linnea. “Today, libraries are dynamic community hubs offering so much more than books, and I love that part of my job is sharing these opportunities with the community. When people say, ‘I didn’t know the library did that,’ I can truly relate.”

Now, in her role as Community Relations and Communications Manager for the Worcester Public Library, Linnea works hard to make sure her community finds the library to be exciting and dynamic. She’s a team of one, communicating to a city of more than 210,000 residents across seven branches and two bookmobiles. She does receive generous help from library staff with tasks like social media posts, flyer design, calendar postings, and more.

And the library is vital to this city. Linnea says nearly 20 percent of her community lives in poverty. So, when she was approached in 2023 about offering a fee forgiveness program, she was fully supportive.

“We had many kids who went home before the pandemic and left books behind in schools,” explains Linnea. “We also have a growing population of unhoused individuals in our community, and we were finding that we were losing patrons because they had lost or damaged items on their accounts.”

 “From a marketing standpoint, I knew that the right hook was key for an initiative like this to succeed. I also knew I would have no budget. My goal was to come up with something fun and easy enough that people would not only want to participate but would also want to tell their friends and family about.”

Linnea, who is a self-professed “cat person,” decided to lean into her love for felines to create her campaign, which she called March Meowness. The premise was simple: People could trade cat photos for fee forgiveness.

“We began planning in the fall of 2023 and chose March 2024 because there weren’t any competing campaigns planned,” explains Linnea. “The actual marketing push happened just a week before launch. With limited time and resources, I created our collateral and focused on social media, signage, and email as our primary channels.”

“One key strategy was timing. We intentionally didn’t announce too early. By waiting until just a few days before the campaign, we created a sense of urgency and excitement that encouraged immediate participation.”

-Linnea Sheldon

“Another pivotal decision was to pitch the story to the media before we launched it ourselves. Local outlets loved the playful concept, and the first article went live within the hour. Even press outlets in Boston picked up the story, and from there it snowballed. By the time we officially launched on our website and social media, we already had significant buzz and community interest.”

Linnea says the community response far exceeded the library’s expectations. Worcester Public Library decided to launch the promotions a few days early, at the end of February. Patrons were thrilled to be welcomed back in such a fun, positive way.

“What surprised us most was that even people without fees wanted to participate,” says Linnea. “Many people asked if their cat photos could be applied toward another community member’s account, a generous show of support that really embodied the spirit of the campaign.”

The library displayed submissions on a “cat wall,” and soon cat photos started arriving from across the country. After the story was picked up by The New York Times, it spread internationally, and the library was suddenly receiving cat pictures from all over the world.

“The volume was incredible, and staff from across departments volunteered to help,” recalls Linnea. “We developed a workflow: Some saved the photos, others responded to emails, others formatted and printed the pictures, and still others hung them on the wall.”

“Our circulation staff cleared fees for patrons, and my director and I fielded multiple media requests every day. It was an all-hands-on-deck effort, and while it was exhausting, it was also one of the most energizing experiences we’ve ever had at a library.”

Besides the multitude of patrons whose fees were forgiven, the campaign led to some incredible marketing results. Those included:

  • 10.7 percent increase in physical visits
  • 9.2 percent rise in circulation
  • 10.2 percent increase in new library card registrations when compared to the previous month.
  • 46 percent increase in website traffic
  • 244 percent increase in engaged Facebook users.
  • 120 percent increase in Instagram interactions
  • 16 percent increase in TikTok followers from the previous month.

“We also tracked over 500 media stories on March Meowness,” shares Linnea. “NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt even came to our library to shoot a story.”

“But the real impact was seen when you look at how our patrons were helped. Staff successfully unblocked 930 patron accounts during the campaign, while the Library Board of Directors later approved the forgiveness of an additional 3,787 accounts due to the success of the campaign.”

This past June, Linnea and her library received a John Cotton Dana Award for the campaign. That’s how I first heard about it. Sitting at the award ceremony, I can tell you there was nary a dry eye in the room when Linnea described the outpouring of cat photos from people around the world, eager to help her community reconnect with their library.

And it’s no surprise that Linnea and the library repeated the campaign this year, with a few adjustments.

“We knew nothing could match the scale and virality of the original campaign,” explains Linnea. “This year, we launched March Meowness 2.0: Marchier and Meowier. For every cat photo donated to our cat wall, the Worcester Public Library Foundation pledged $1 toward our summer reading programming.”

“The response was wonderful, we received 2,500 photos, and once again, community members came out to see the cat wall grow. We also introduced a new element: a cat mascot with a community naming contest, which resulted in the winning name Whooskers.”

“While this year’s campaign was more localized and didn’t capture the international attention of the first, our community was still excited for its return and embraced it as a fun, meaningful way to support the library and one another.”

“One of the best outcomes of this campaign was the way it allowed staff to connect with patrons and the community in an entirely new way. Library work can be particularly challenging. We deal with serious issues every day and support people in deeply meaningful but often difficult ways. March Meowness brought a sense of lightness and joy.”

“The initiative also opened incredible doors for our library and for me personally. In the past year, we have received more awards than at any other time in our organization’s history. The campaign has connected me with library marketers across the country and strengthened relationships within my own community in ways I never imagined possible.”

“We’re still making the case for the importance of marketing and communications in libraries to our city officials, but all of these wins have made it even clearer just how important our field is to the success of libraries across the globe.”

-Linnea Sheldon

And when she’s not creating award-winning campaigns, Linnea says she looks to other libraries, nonprofits, large companies, and this blog (thank you!) to stay on top of trends and get creative ideas.

“I’m subscribed to a wide range of email marketing lists, I’m a regular social media user, and I follow marketing and nonprofit influencers on LinkedIn,” shares Linnea. “I also make a point to research the campaigns and libraries that win marketing awards each year. It’s inspiring to see the creativity and innovation happening across the field.”

“Harris County Public Library was one of the first libraries that really stood out to me on social media; they showed me that taking a slightly unconventional approach could actually expand your reach.”

For a library looking to launch a campaign like March Meowness, Linnea has four key pieces of advice.

  1. Always start with your patrons. This campaign may have been fun and lighthearted, but it grew directly out of a real need identified by our New Users Task Force. Our community needed a fee forgiveness program to remove barriers to access. Without that foundation, the idea wouldn’t have resonated the way it did.
  2. Lean into what makes your library unique. For us, it was cats. We were already known for our cat memes, and many staff (me included) are passionate cat lovers. That authenticity made the campaign feel natural and genuine, which helped it connect with people.
  3. Remember that making marketing fun can actually make your job easier. While responding to the overwhelming interest took a lot of work, the creative and promotional side of the campaign was surprisingly simple. Of course, not every initiative lends itself to this kind of playful approach, but finding ways to add a little fun to a program or campaign benefits both patrons and staff.
  4. It helps immensely to have supportive colleagues and leadership. Over the years, I’ve built strong relationships with staff and with our Executive Director, who is always willing to try new and creative ideas. That trust and openness were critical in bringing March Meowness to life.

Need more inspiration?

How One Library Marketer Played an April Fools’ Prank On Her Community… and Got Incredible Reach on Social Media!

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