Problem/Scenario: The coordinators of our institution’s 2023 Scientific Day event wanted to allow attendees to cast votes for a new Fan Favorite poster award and they asked library staff for help in making this possible. Library staff maintain the institutional repository (IR) for our large health care system, and posters from Scientific Day are deposited in the IR so they are visible to judges and attendees during the virtual event. Our Digital Commons IR did not have a built-in voting system, so library staff used Springshare’s LibWizard and our HTML and design skills to add “Like” buttons to conference posters in the IR.

Methods: There were two different categories of posters that were eligible for a Fan Favorite award, so two polls were created in LibWizard. Each submission was added to the appropriate LibWizard poll and given a unique code. A “Like” button was designed in PowerPoint, and the graphic was saved in Springshare’s image manager. The “Like” button was added to a preexisting HTML-enabled field in each conference poster in our IR and the image was linked to a LibWizard poll with the submission preselected. Conference attendees had only to click the "Like" button and then Submit within the survey to cast their Fan Favorite votes.

Conclusions: Attendees submitted over 450 votes during the Scientific Day virtual conference and two Fan Favorite designations were awarded. Using the voting button to increase attendee engagement was a success, although we did learn some valuable lessons for future events.