I recieved this little guy from the New England Journal of Medicine while I attended their Library Advisory Board meeting earlier this month.
It is a USB drive that looks like a Leggo doctor. It is a kind of little fun thing I immediately started using it. Right now he goes everywhere with me, he is my Roaming Gnome as I travel from computer to computer.
I did a little searching online and it turns out you can pretty much make anything a USB drive, food, bling, Transformers, Swiss Army knives, etc. I searched around but did not find a USB to look like a book or a librarian. Bummer. But what a great opportunity that could be. Have a little librarian USB (male and female versions of course), perhaps a book USB, or even one with the MLA logo or your own library logo to hand out.
I am not sure how much the novelty ones like my little NEJM gnome cost to produce, but heck just a plain one with your library’s name on it is a lot cooler to hand out than bookmarks. At the 2009 Technology in Libraries symposium sponsored by the MLGSCA and NN/LM-PSR they handed out little red USB drives engraved with the symposium title and date. They contained ALL of the handouts, slides, posters, etc. from the meeting. Now that was really nice. It saved some trees, was easy to pack, and I didn’t need to add to my collection of conference bags.
Cool idea. The CDC, which has a mega huge exhibit space at the APHA annual meeting, gave out USB drives stocked with digital versions of all of their handouts as an incentive for exhibit visitors to complete a brief survey. Sure did save room in the suitcase!
I am so very bummed out that our hospital is no longer allowed to accept anything from vendors. I want one!