MARKETING TIP FROM J. HOSP. LIB.

Here's another marketing tip from the same issue of the Journal of Hospital Librarianship (v. 7, #1).

This one is from "The Buck Starts Here: Using In-House Reports to Market Your Library" by Elizabeth Burns [Kansas City (Missouri) Veterans Administration Medical Center, USA].

"The authors [Mosby, D and M Weissman, The paradox of excellence: How great performance can kill your business. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2005] likened the reports to a grocery store clerk handing the customer a receipt and saying, 'You saved X amount of money by shopping with us today.'"

How about including a note with each document or search delivered to your customers that says, "You saved X amount of money by ordering this information from your library"--with what the item would have cost from an outside provider.

Or, include an invoice for the cost of the information, with a large stamp that says, "Paid in full courtesy of the .... Library" (or for public library, "Paid in full by your tax dollars.")