In recent days, after running more focus groups, doing more user interviews, and working with lots of researchers, I’ve become even more aware of how much we librarians need to get the word out to our users about our wares. So I started thinking about library marketing. As soon as I thought about it, however, I also wondered how my colleagues feel about marketing in libraries—since it’s my belief that if you want a program to succeed, then it’s necessary for at least most of the folks involved in it to believe in it.
So I did another micro-survey (kind of like the one I did for Professional Development: What’s it to You? earlier this year), only this time I told those surveyed I was going to give them a phrase, and then ask them for the first word or phrase that popped into their heads when they read it. I noted that I was looking for just their first, visceral reaction, rather than any considered response.
Then I gave them the phrase: library marketing,
…and asked: what’s the first thing that came to mind when you read that?
This went out to a number of colleagues, many in academic libraries and others in public libraries, secondary schools, library schools, special libraries; and to some library consultants. Respondents are mostly in the U.S. with a few in other countries, as well. The group included both seasoned librarians and those who are newer to the profession. As expected, I got a varied mix of responses. Here are some of them, as they appeared in the emails returned to me (completely anonymized as promised to the respondents):
Word or phrase responses
::shudder:: Aren’t libraries corporate enough?
Bleh, not THAT again
Boring
CRINGE
Departmental goal for this year
Desperately needed
Eghh!
ESSENTIAL
Give me a break!
Handouts (as in fliers, signs, posters, moo cards, postcards, and brochures)
Instruction
Learn!
Library marketing = essential activity
Library website with too many advertising pictures and not enough information
Management jargon
McDonald’s—sorry, for so many reasons…
Me: As in marketing to me, what the library can do for me, etc.
My first reaction was the name of the person in our library who takes care of marketing & communication
Necessary!
Newsletters, both paper and electronic.
Not enough time
Oh no, not again!
Outreach
Oxymoron
Pictures of our library events
Promoting our value
Public relations
Publicity [mentioned twice]
Slick. As in, delivering a coherent, impressive message
Social media!
Telling our story
Ugh
Vendors
Some people sent longer responses. Here are some of them:
“Library marketing is the process of encouraging the community [to] think about the library as an important, useful, and meaningful institution in their lives. It’s funny—marketing has both positive and negative connotations. On the positive, it can be a good thing to introduce, inform, learn more, explain. On the negative, there is an element of manipulation that makes me uncomfortable. I think about commercials for sugary cereal that used to air during the Saturday morning cartoon block or the glamorous cigarette ads that were the mainstays of magazine advertising for so many years.”
“As an over-achiever, I must respond with two (or, just put a semicolon between them and it’ll count as one): We can do SO much better; let’s start talking to the world instead of only amongst ourselves.”
“My first gut reaction regarding library marketing: tough, need an innovative and persistent mindset, not necessarily having the infrastructure support from library administration.”
“Not very helpful I suspect but I thought of bake sale tables set up in the [name of library] lobby.”
“My first reaction was one of suspicion, wanting to know more…“Oh dear! What’s that about?””
“Vibrant, professional level images/web/videos/posters/etc. that celebrate what the library can offer to students, faculty, and staff.”
“If you don’t believe in your library, it is hard to sell it, and if you don’t sell it, it will die.”
“I think it’s just that I don’t see that much new stuff introduced for library marketing, and there are a lot of other sources of marketing that we compete with. Some types of marketing can be annoying though, so boring is not the worst :)”
“Library outreach,” on the other hand, or “library campaign,” PSAs, awareness raising…those sound fine; indeed, desperately needed.”
“I understand the need for library marketing, but I don’t enjoy making it happen.”
“My visceral response: UGH! I know you aren’t looking for more, but I think this is a bad name for something we need to do, which is understand the needs, habits, and desires of people who use or don’t use libraries so that we can serve our communities better. There are a lot of informative ways to do that. Not all valuable research has to be preceded by the word “market” and the assumption that we have to “sell” ourselves sometimes gets in the way of paying attention to our communities. You could have guessed I’d respond this way, right? :) The start of the annual advertising barrage doesn’t help me develop a positive attitude toward marketing.”
“So when I saw your “library marketing” two things popped into my head: billboards and drink coasters. Let me explain! This past ALA I attended a session that talked about library marketing done…hmmm….I can’t remember where, but in a public library. They used non-traditional-for-libraries marketing tools that basically forced the library into people’s consciousness. And they did the math—they knew approximately how many people drove this particular road, and therefore how many eyes would see it. It was a little unclear as to the results though. The coasters were interesting too—they had pop quizzes on them and when you flipped the over for the answer it referenced how the library could help with questions like these. I think they distributed to local bars/restaurants.”
“First thing that comes to mind is what we have discussed in the past, that the “library image” needs to be upgraded as our users simply don’t know what new and innovative services we are offering now. I’ve had luck in personal conversations, where we talk about the patron’s own work first, and within that conversation mention services that may be of use to her/him. The only thing is that this doesn’t scale. It also leans toward the traditional approach while everything is going online these days. So like we have discussed in the past, librarians will have to get savvy about creating these opportunities in the digital environment. For instance, some libraries are monitoring Twitter and are providing feedback if certain criteria are triggered. My approach isn’t that sophisticated but I do follow prolific Tweeters in my community and if I see anything relevant to the library, I respond. Over time, this group actually references me if they think that the topic is applicable. In the end, I still prefer meeting in-person but the reality of our current digital times is pointing in another direction.”
“My first thought when I think about library marketing is community participation. I think the only really effective way to promote and maintain the importance of libraries is for all of us—librarians, staff, regular users—to participate in the community. In my mind this means that librarians attend the town/city/village/neighborhood meetings, offer to do programs for organizations like Rotary and the Optimists Club—attend those kinds of meetings and reach out to schools and other libraries to exchange programs and attend their programs. Have a booth at the town/neighborhood festivals and make it a real attraction e.g., I had the thought that a university library might coordinate with a local partially university based CSA or otherwise to do books and veg or something. Buying logo pencils is not really much good. That’s my thoughts. :)”
“The first thing that popped into my head when I read the phrase “library marketing” was a question: Are we “selling” what our patrons are “shopping” for? This is true of the profession as a whole as well as our specific institution. I don’t claim to have the answer, but we need more rigorous assessment efforts and engagement with patrons (particularly those patrons who are *not* regular library users) to understand better what services and resources we ought to providing. If we’re marketing things that users neither need nor want, we are actually working against ourselves.”
“I’m embarrassed to say this, but my first image is of a librarian pleading on hands and knees. Maybe I’m not in the best of moods (?!). Outside of that image, I see a lot of billboards and advertisements covering a library. It’s too bad my images are so negative, because I know marketing is very important in our culture. Thanks for anonymizing!”
A few things about this survey:
You may figure that a one-question survey like this isn’t valid. Maybe not, but I did get just what I was seeking, that is, colleagues’ gut reactions to library marketing.
Since it’s anonymized you have no way of telling what the demographic breakdown was for the responses; specifically, did one group of librarians (say, the newer-to-the-profession librarians) respond more favorably to the phrase “library marketing” than did others (say, the more seasoned librarians?). I checked that breakdown, just so you know, and the responses were pretty evenly divided between the two groups on both ends of the positive/negative reaction continuum.
Given the large number of negative responses, I’m inclined to think we have some work to do before our profession can do effective large-scale library marketing (based on my premise that if you want a program to succeed it’s necessary for at least most of the folks involved to believe in it). But I also believe that, whatever we call it, we need to make our users much more aware of what we offer and what we’re actually providing to them.
Why so many negative reactions to the “library marketing” phrase? I think the clue lies in the content of many responses, especially those such as, “::shudder:: Aren’t libraries corporate enough?,” “McDonald’s,” and “Management jargon.” The leitmotif of anger about the corporatization of libraries came through loud and clear here. I have to echo that concern, since I still believe libraries are educational entities within their communities, rather than just businesses that need to be run. Please note that I’m stipulating “just” businesses to be run, because I realize libraries do need to be run efficiently and effectively. However, when corporate imperatives trump a library’s basic mission of education and research support, for me that’s a sign of the library going downhill.
Admittedly, this is a long post, but I think it’s valuable for readers to hear what so many librarians said in their exact words—and I believe providing anonymity lets people give their true responses, rather than an expurgated version. I feel lucky to have colleagues and acquaintances throughout the profession who are willing to take part in such a survey, and my heartfelt thanks go to the many colleagues who were game to participate this time around. Thank you so much.
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