Happy New Year from Neuse Regional Libraries! We’re convinced that this is going to be our best year yet and to start things off right we’re rolling out some wonderful changes, starting with a brand new logo and Library website! 

We’ve been busy implementing a new Strategic Plan and one of our goals is to “Tell the library’s story through effective marketing to demonstrate the library’s value and impact within the community.” Our initial action step towards accomplishing this goal was to update the Library’s logo to make it more modern, vibrant, and communicative of the Library’s priorities. 

A color palette was thoughtfully selected utilizing established graphic design color theories to represent different aspects of the Library’s Vision Statement, with purple symbolizing the Library’s vision of Inspiring Creativity, teal symbolizing the vision of Fostering Learning, and orange symbolizing our vision of Engaging Community. 

In order to maximize community involvement in the creation of this new logo, our Library Leadership Team and Branch Managers decided to contact the Graphic Arts and Imaging Department at Lenoir Community College in order to see if this was an opportunity students could use to develop their design skills. Dr. Hope Carroll was generous enough to offer the time and significant talent from the students in her department, and after visiting the Kinston-Lenoir County Public Library and meeting with our Marketing Librarian, Jennifer Nelson, students submitted potential logos. 

While there were several incredibly creative submissions, one certainly stood out as effectively conveying the Library’s Vision. Cody Pearce’s logo was unanimously and enthusiastically selected and with some slight tweaking from our IT Specialist, Sean Moore, NRL now has a vibrant and compelling new logo to share with our communities in Lenoir, Jones, and Greene Counties.

The second component in our effort to tell the Library’s story was a complete overhaul of the www.neuselibrary.org website. Once again IT Specialist Sean Moore played a key role in helping achieve this goal by designing an eye-catching, user-friendly interface for our updated website. The new color palette and logo were thoughtfully applied, and every page of the site was redesigned in order to be faster, visually appealing, informative, and easy-to-use. Monthly programming schedules, hours, and contact information for each of our eight library locations are now easier to select, beautiful photographs of key Lenoir, Jones, and Greene County landmarks are distributed throughout the site, and access to individual library accounts and catalog listings has been simplified. 

NRL is constantly finding ways to improve the services and materials we provide. Please visit our exciting new website at www.neuselibrary.org to see the dynamic changes we’ve made and the wonderful plans we have to support the educational and recreational needs of our communities in the future. We would love to have you be a part of the Library’s story! #newnrl2020