The academic open software partnership OLE (Open Library Environment) has taken on its first public relations and advertising agency of record, The Republik, based in Raleigh. Previous work was handled by local agencies on a project basis. The Republik will work on name development, brand positioning, messaging, website development, public relations and, beginning in 2018, launch advertising. OLE’s target audience will be academic and research librarians worldwide.
The assignment was made by OLE managing director Michael Winkler, based on The Republik’s brand strategy expertise within the research and academic fields, in particular for LexisNexis, Duke University, and the University of North Carolina.
OLE, based out of Ithaca, N.Y., is an international community of academic and research libraries that is collaborating to build open source, extensible, and service-driven library management tools. U.S. partner universities include Cornell, Duke, Lehigh, Texas A&M, University of Chicago and North Carolina State University, with additional partners based in London and the E.U. Software development has progressed to the point where OLE will actively seek to expand the user and contibutor communities.
The Republik is a Raleigh-based, employee-owned advertising/branding agency. Other clients include the International Zinc Association, Organic Transit, Modern Surfaces, Graybeard Distillery, FHI, Hanwha L&C Surfaces, PrivatizeMe, Fayetteville Area CVB, 21c Museum Hotel, Boy Scouts of America Occoneechee Council, First Flight Venture Center, LexisNexis and The Franklin.
