Can You Describe What You Do in Three Words?

Mary Ellen Bates lists some great answers to this question on her blog, Librarian of Fortune. Read the whole post, then see what you can come up with to describe what you do. Here are some of the ones I liked best:

Making clients smarter (her answer)
Strategic information solutions
Better decisions faster
Helping organizations thrive
Informing client decisions.
Encourage knowledge sharing

What was mine? Solutions to problems.

URL:
http://www.librarianoffortune.com/librarian_of_fortune/2009/08/describe-what-you-do-in-three-words.html

An OPL Shows How to Survive a Recession

Penny Sympson, OPL at Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, Inc., Northbrook, Illinois, was mentioned in “Saving Special Libraries in a Recession: Business Strategies for Survival and Success,” a Contributed Paper at the 2009 Special Libraries Association Annual Conference. The paper was written by five graduate students and a professor in the College of Information Studies, University of Maryland, College Park.

There is a summary of a survey of special libraries and four case studies: a long one on KMPG’s National Tax Library, and shorter ones Wiss Janney, the Environmental Protection Agency, and Apple Computer. It concludes with lessons learned: Market Yourself Aggressively, Know Your Audience, Be a Part of the Organization, and Prepare Metrics and Justifications.

This is a good article that all librarians should read—and implement its suggestions. Way to go, Penny!

URL: http://www.sla.org/pdfs/sla2009/SavingSL.pdf

Dow Jones on the Hidden Cost of "Free" Information

Dow Jones has released the e-book, Pay Now or Pay Later: Exposing the Hidden Cost of “Free” Information. It was written by Brigitte Ricou-Bellan, VP & MD, Dow Jones Enterprise Media Group, with the acknowledged help of SLA members Stephen Abram and Mary Ellen Bates.

It is well worth a read. Here are some excerpts:
“An unlimited amount of free information misleads us into thinking that there is no cost at all. In reality the opposite is true.” “The real issue is value.”

There are 7 sections:
1. The Power of One: Centralize, organize and unify your information resources.
2. The Magic of Me: Customize information to the needs of the individual.
3. Follow the Leader: Establish rules and administrative controls in the organization.
4. A Matter of Trust: Encourage confidence and understand context.
5. The Lost Month: Improve search productivity.
6. People Are Talking: Manage your reputation in a social world.
7. Freedom of Information: Embrace copyrights and protect your organization

Also included is a checklist of resources [from Dow Jones, of course] “to ensure your information sources are truly productive.”

However, the only places it mentions something like a librarian are: (emphasis mine except in the last line)

“Without a guiding intelligence, knowledge does not ‘know’ where to go…. Expert research specialists, however, can help users direct data sources into the appropriate channels….” (item 2)

“Professionals [in what not stated] prescreen information to weed out material that’s extraneous to their readership.” (number 4)

Bur when it does mention us, it is good PR: “In any information-intensive enterprise, librarians and other information professionals are a key resource for reducing costs and improving organizational efficiency. According to a study by Outsell, Inc., …in-house librarians save an average of nine hours and $2,128 per each request for information.” (point 5)

URL: http://letstalkknowledge.com/uploads/PNPL_ebook.pdf

Top 10 Reasons to Use Your Library

These came from the brochure “Library Services for Primary Care Standards,” published by the Virginia Library Network and "based on recent studies of library user patterns." I don't think it's a particularly great list, but a top-ten list is a good idea--especially in a brochure. And this idea is not limited to medical libraries--any library can do this.

I'm sure if you work on it, you can come up with 10 reasons specific to your organization and your library and are better than these. Go to it!

10. Get valuable information to help make decisions.
9. Get more accurate information.
8. Make better decisions.
7. Save time.
6. Be more productive.
5. Get your work done.
4. Do better work.
3. Be a “fast-tracker.”
2. Contribute to knowledge sharing within your organization
1. Save money.

URL: http://www.mlanet.org/pix/nmlm_07/large/valnet.jpg

Need Help in Writing Your Library Brochure?

Tanya Feddern-Bekcan [University of Miami (FL) School of Medicine] asked members of the MEDLIB-L electronic list for suggestions for what should (or could) be included in a library brochure. Here is a summary of the replies she received.

Note: You don't need to put all of these into every brochure. You should have a basic brochure with numbers 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,10,13 (just the who can use the library part), 33, and a selection of 18 and 21. Adding 27 and 28 would be good, too.
Other brochures could have more specialized information, such as "More About the Library" with the basic information plus 1, 9,13,14, and 20; "Library Services" with the basic information 16,17, and 18; "The Library: Wherever You Want It" with the basic informaton plus 15,22,23,30 and 32. You can think of others, I'm sure.

1. Library Mission/Vision Statement
2. Hours
3. Main phone number
4. Physical address
5. Post Office address with campus locator code (for interoffice mail)
6. Main email address
7. Website address
8. Director’s name
9. Librarians’ names (with/without email addresses or phone number extensions)
10. Campus map showing library location
11. Layout map of the library (indicating location of study rooms, stacks, etc.)
12. NLM Classifications
13. Library Rules (who can access library in person or online, children accompanied by adult, no food/drink, computer usage rules, badge worn inside the library, etc.) - only the "who can access the library" is necessary
14. Library Policies & Procedures (checkout, donating materials, renewal, placing a hold, fines, etc.)
15. Website URLs or databases: with or without annotations (PubMed, MEDLINEplus, etc.)
16. Listing of the number of books, electronic resources, databases, etc.
17. Listing of number of computers and other library equipment (copiers, scanners, paper cutter, etc.)
18. Listing of library services (training, ILL, designing/printing professional posters, document delivery, copying, providing guidance relating to copyright and the ethical use of information, teaching curriculum-related information skills with you, etc.)
19. Listing of librarian duties (part of healthcare team, contribute to patient care and safety, serve on hospital committees, share new resources & ideas, etc.)
20. Referring to librarians as masters-prepared, certified, faculty, professional medical librarians, etc.
21. Quotes by pleased patrons identified as “Molecular Biologist,” “Assistant Professor of Medicine,” etc.
22. Instructions for Remote Access
23. Search tips
24. Description of the EBM/Research process
25. Funded/Donated items and the name of the donor/funding source
26. Awards the library has received
27. “Coupon” for a free library service or candy
28. Tear-off bookmark that lists the library contact info, hours, and services
29. Information prescription form
30. Training request form
31. Top 10 Reasons to Use Your Library
32. Image of the library homepage with its features pointed out and annotated
33. Date the brochure was last revised

Great Marketing Idea! Digital Picture Frames Lure Potential Users

Amber Draksler and Melinda Byrns of Inova Fairfax Health Sciences Library, Falls Church, Virginia, have a great marketing idea. Load your presentation on a digital picture frame and take it to your potential customers.

Read all about it in National Network 34(1):12, July 2009 published by the Hospital Libraries Section of the Medical Libraries Association. NN is available online, but you have to have the password. Write Amy Frey, editor, at amyfre@hfsc.org to get it.

Promote the Nexus

Peter Persic, Public Relations and Marketing Director, Los Angeles (California) Public Library, presented this marketing/advocacy idea at the annual conference of the American Library Association.

Libraries are known for Information. This need is also filled by Google.
Libraries are known for Reading. This need is also filled by Barnes & Noble.
Libraries are known as Cultural Centers. This need is also filled by museums.
Libraries are know as Community Centers. This need is also filled by Starbucks.

However, the library "is uniquely positioned at the nexus of all four needs." So he encouraged listeners to "promote the nexus."

As reported by Kathy Dempsey [Libraries Are Essential/editor MLS: Marketing Library Services] on The “M” Word: Marketing Libraries, 20 July 2009, http://themwordblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/im-finally-getting-back-to-blogging.html

BOOK REVIEW: The Accidental Library Marketer

Kathy Dempsey, the long-time editor of the newsletter MLS: Marketing Library Services, has written a great book on library marketing. It is designed for the librarian who, for any of many reasons, has become the go-to person for marketing in his or her library. Of course for solos, the library marketer is you.

Dempsey really gets marketing. She defines it as “the process where the ultimate goal is moving goods and/or services from the producer and provider to a consumer….True marketing always involved a number of steps that ensure that the consumer will end up with those goods and services.” (13) It starts with finding out about your customers/patrons/users/students and ends with evaluating feedback from them. That’s right—marketing is not the same as publicity or PR or promotion. It is much more than that.

Therefore, she starts with communication, goes on to evaluating your current situation (environment), and discusses using demographic or other data. There’s a chapter on marketing mistakes, getting management and staff buyin, making evidence-based decisions, and statistics. Then it’s on to the writing of a marketing plan, rules for good promotional materials, communication tips, and using your website for outreach. The last chapter is called “Finally, the Fun Stuff” and has success stories, wow factor ideas, “snappy comebacks for that awful question, ‘Now that we have the Internet, why do we still need libraries?’” and a final lesson. What’s that? “you should always be ready to respond to anyone, anytime, anywhere if you hear people question the existence of libraries. You understand their value—heck, you live their value. All you need to do to help in a big way is to have a sentence of two in mind so you’re always ready to spring into action. You don’t need a special occasion.” Well said.

The book is oriented mostly toward public and academic libraries, but there are a few mentions of school and—amazingly—special libraries. She even quotes me (page 91). But all of her book is useful for every kind of librarian. Read this and put it into action.

There is an index and three appendixes, all articles from MLS: Marketing Library Services: A: Improving our media relations via strategic communications planning, by Marsha Iverson [King County (Washington) Library System]; B: Designing promo materials that are legible, by Pat Wagner [Pattern Research, Denver, Colorado]; and C: Promotion is not the same as marketing, by Christie Koontz [Florida State University, Tallahassee]. I’d have liked to see a bibliography or list of readings, but there is a list of links, chapter by chapter, on the website for Dempsey consulting firm, http://www.librariesareessential.com/the-accidental-library-marketer/chapter-by-chapter/

Bibliographic Information:
Dempsey, Kathy, The Accidental Library Marketer, Medford, NJ: Information Today, Inc., 2009, ISBN 978-1-57387-368-0, US$29.50. Order at http://infotoday.stores.yahoo.net/aclima.html

Things to Think About in These Bad Economic Times

The 15 June issue of Library Journal (v. 134, no. 11) has two columns that you should read.

Be Selfish, Promote Service, The Transparent Library, by Michael Casey and Michael Stephens, p. 23
In these times of diminishing resources, it is more important than ever to provide excellent customer service. “Anyone can shine when money and time are in abundance. It takes a positive and progressive individual to stand out when things are difficult.” The Michaels have some excellent ideas that bear reading—and implementing.

Libraries & the Inspiration Business, Backtalk, by Brian Mathews, p. 38
“With federal, state, and county budgets drying up as record numbers of users flock to libraries, now is an excellent time for introspection about our profession. What exactly is our line of work?” “One of the great things about our profession is that we have the chance each day to make a positive impact on our community. Don’t miss out on your opportunity to inspires someone today.”

What I've Read Lately...and So Should You

Here are a few articles that I think you should be reading. Most are from a great issue of Information Outlook (Special Libraries Association’s magazine) on the future of the profession.

Oder, Norman, MLS: Hire Ground? Library Journal 134(10):44-46, 1 June 2009. Discusses how economics and new technology may lead to fewer degreed librarians being hired and used by libraries. “Consultant Joan Frye Williams tells libraries not to put their most skilled people at the desk requiring the most interaction with the public. ‘We need to separate intake, which does not require a master’s, from execution, which does,’ she says.” But can non-professionals do an adequate reference interview?

Frey, Thomas, Rethinking the Post-Recession Specialty Library, Information Outlook 13(4):15-19, June 2009.
“…libraries will begin to experiment with a version of the digital library I’ve termed ‘the electronic outpost.’ Electronic outposts will evolve over time around the core services most relevant to a particular user group. Here are some examples of new library functions: search command centers, podcast studios, vidcast studios, virtual world stations, gamer stations, mini-theaters, cyber cafes.” Only one of these—the first—is a typical library function of today.

Huffman, Karen, Deborah Hunt, Nerida Hart, and Daniel Lee, Adding Value, Going Global, and Serving Smaller Clients, Information Outlook 134(10):27-31, June 2009.
Four SLA members were asked “to share their views on (a) the most significant developments that will affect the industry and profession and (b) how SLA can best help them and their colleagues prepare for the future.” Hart (Land and Water Australia).“I believe libraries, as we now know them, will not exist; the need for information professionals, however, will grow. They will be co-located with their clients and work side by side with them on projects to obtain better outcomes for their parent organization.” (This is how she works—her organization has no library.) “We need to educate information professionals not to expect to be located in a physical library but to think outside what has been done in the past.”

Abram, Stephen, Blogging as a Special Librarian, Information Outlook 134(10):47-48, June 2009.
Advice for newbies to blogging. “We should all be communicating regularly with our users, colleagues, patrons, markets and just plain folks. Invest part of yourself and your personality in your blog. If you’re real and authentic, people will be attracted to your advice.”

Schacter, Debbie, Adjusting to Changes in User and Client Expectations, Information Outlook 134(10):55-57, June 2009.
“Will the world be without information professionals in the future? I doubt it. Will the nature of the work or our interactions with our customers be different? Undoubtedly.”

Latham, John, Reaching Those Who Search (and Fail) on Their Own, Information Outlook 134(10):59, June 2009.
“Even if you provide excellent service, it will only be apparent to those within your organization who have benefited from it. You have to get the word out to those within your organization who have not used your services—and especially to senior management.” An Outsell survey shows that the search failure of most information workers is nearly 40 percent.

Note: Is it my imagination or are there a lot more articles in Information Outlook from people outside the library world?—regular columns excepted. While it’s good to hear from others, why aren’t there more articles by SLA members? Aren’t we submitting them?

BOOK REVIEW: MARKETING TODAY’S ACADEMIC LIBRARY

The subtitle of Brian Mathews’s new book is a bold new approach to communicating with students. And that is what this book is. First of all, there is Mathews’s job title—user experience librarian (at Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta). How much better is this than reference librarian, or technology whatever, or even outreach librarian? Georgia Tech obviously understands that the quality of your collection or building is irrelevant if the user experience isn’t good, because no one will use what you have.

Then there’s the dedication: “to college students around the world, who deserve better library experiences.” The foreword isn’t by a librarian, but by the vice president of distribution marketing for the InterContinental Hotels Group. He makes a thought-provoking statement: “I think of someone picking up Brian’s book in fifteen years, reading this foreword, and mistaking it for a user’s guide to some kind of museum of antiquities. Will anyone even be reading then…?”

Mathews’s has discovered that some students are not interested in using the university’s computers to search for information—preferring to search using their mobile phones or PDAs. But they couldn’t reach much of the library’s resources. “…students actually visited the library regularly but had no clue how to use it or about the full range of tools and services available to them. Entering this social sphere of students expanded my point of view. I was no longer bound behind the reference desk or limited by the classroom setting.” He went to the students and faculty and found out about their needs and ways of gathering information—what he calls “becoming ubiquitous.” (Check out his blog, The Ubiquitous Librarian.) This book is the result of his ubiquitousness.

He starts with a controversial statement, “Let’s be honest: libraries don’t need to advertise. Students will always be drawn to the library….” But as a place, not necessarily as a resource. But he isn’t trying to convince you to market the library, but to establish” an emotional and interactive connection with our users” to make the library “a premier campus destination, rather than just a place that students have to go.” What he’s really talking about is repositioning the library in its users’s minds. He rightly understands that “you’ll never change perceptions through countless committee meetings…. Video games, iPods, DVDs, and other gimmicks are also not the solution. No, the process begins when we stop pretending that we know what students want and instead genuinely attempt to understand their needs and preferences—and speak to them in their language.” HE IS ABSOLUTELY RIGHT!

The rest of the book follows the usual path of marketing books: Defining the user, student need states, the library as product, conducting marketing research, building relationships, developing brand strategies, promotional building blocks, designing messages, measuring the impact, putting it all together. But it is all focused on what Mathews calls “a social approach to marketing.” This is where the strength of the book lies.

Other features: an epilogue: Staging academic experiences and an afterword by a Georgia Tech student. Index. There is no bibliography, but references are included at the end of each chapter.

Bottom line: This doesn’t just apply to academic libraries. ALL libraries have to listen to their users—especially as the Gen Yers/Millennials and their successors come into the workplace. If you’re already a marketing expert and your library is full and loved and used, this is an optional purchase. But if you think you could serve your customers better, especially the younger ones, BUY THIS BOOK!

Bibliographic information:
Mathews, Brian, Marketing today’s academic library: a bold new approach to communicating with students, Chicago: ALA Editions, 2009, ISBN 978-0-8389-0984-3, US$48.00.

URLs:
To order the book: http://www.alastore.ala.org/detail.aspx?ID=2596
Brian’s blog: http://theubiquitouslibrarian.typepad.com/

GUEST ARTICLE--THE FUTURE OF LIBRARIES

Think For The Customer .....The Future of Libraries
by John Stanley, John Stanley Associates, Kalamunda, Western Australia,
Australia

Libraries are no different to any other business as they face the challenges of 2009 and beyond. What worked in 2008 may not work in a changed market place. The consumer has changed their shopping habits and their buying habit, probably for good. This has real impact on the role of the library in the community.

In more difficult times the consumer relooks at the way they spend their money. As a result, small luxury items sales increase. Small indulgencies increase in popularity during tough economic times. Businesses that believe they do not have small indulgency items for sale often succumb to playing the sales game to generate sales on the High (Main) Street. The result is the consumer is being trained to accept the 70 percent off sales as a norm.

But, how does this affect Libraries?
In more difficult economic times, libraries come into their own again. People who have not walked into a library for many years are rediscovering, or discovering, libraries for the first time. The challenge is, are you marketing your library to attract the consumers who at times may find a library uncomfortable and forbidding?

I was recently intrigued to see a banner [in the photo above] over Balham Library in London ,UK promoting free reading in the library. This was a direct marketing campaign aimed at promoting the benefits of the library in the community when the consumer was thinking about how they could save money. This was especially relevant, as the local bookshop was offering an incentive for their consumers to get a discount if they returned the bookshop books back to the bookshop once their customers had read them.

Reading is recognised as a small indulgent luxury by more people during tough economic times. This is a marketing opportunity that can be used by the library service to increase patronage. The key is to observe how consumers think and adapt your library service to the new thinking process and at the same time, you need to make your library more consumer friendly to these new patrons.

By nature, a librarian, like many other industry experts, tends to think about the product first and then secondly think about how the consumer will react to their product. A classic example of this is laying a library out using the Dewey System; the Dewey System alone can deter many people from going into a library. The entrepreneurial thinker will think differently; they will put themselves in the customer’s shoes first and then arrange the product and signage system to help the consumer.

However, with new consumers looking for access to a wide range of reading material, they may choose to venture into libraries. That creates an opportunity for librarians to re-think the presentation of their “products” and offer new ideas on “merchandising.” Try the new ideas and then test them to see if they work and whether they are worth adopting in the library.

Libraries, in my view, will have a new role in the community over the next few years and will become a lot more relevant than they may have been perceived to be in recent past years. Libraries today have an opportunity to attract new consumers, and that means it is also a time to experiment with new ways of attracting new consumers. It is time to brainstorm with the team how you can present library products and services in a way that could attract more consumers to your library. The library industry is entering a new and exciting era and now is the time to grasp those opportunities and run with them.

John Stanley is a world-reknown library and retail consultant, speaker and author. John helps libraries: lay the library out with the consumer in mind to increase lend rate, create displays to maximise lend rate potential, and market their services to increase patron count.

URL: http://www.johnstanley.cc

THIS YOU HAVE TO SEE

There’s a great video on Public Sector Marketing 2.0 on What Would Happen If the Stop Sign was Invented in 2008. If you’ve ever sat in a marketing meeting, you’ll really get this.

URL: http://www.mikekujawski.ca/2008/12/17/what-would-happen-if-the-stop-sign-was-invented-in-2008/

BOOK REVIEW: THE SMALL PUBLIC LIBRARY SURVIVAL GUIDE

Landau, Herbert B., The Small Public Library Survival Guide: Thriving on Less, Chicago: ALA Editions, 2008, ISBN 978-0-8389-3575-0, US$38.00 (members: US$34.20).

Landau, Director of the Milanof-Schock Library in Mount Joy, Pennsylvania, has written a small but useful book. There is not a whole lot new in this guide, but it brings together many ideas that he has used to keep his small library alive—and to help it to expand its offerings and services.

I especially like the first and last chapters. Why This Book is Necessary and Conclusion: Is It Worth All the Effort explore the role the public library can and should serve in small-town America in the twenty-first century. He rightly concludes that yes, it is worth the effort to afford the opportunity to access information by all—including the poor, the young, the rural, and the elderly—who may have no other option.

Except for those chapters, the book follows the usual management book arrangement with chapters on creating a strategic plan, funding the plan (with ideas specifically for the small library), marketing, programming, staffing, and purchasing. He provides some ideas not found in most such books, such as bake sales, taking passport applications (increasing both funding and traffic), and face-to-face marketing and soliciting of funds. There is a bibliography and index and eight appendixes: institutional sources of information, sample survey questions, sample direct mail solicitation letter, how to evaluate old and rare books, sample memorial gift form, sample research grant agreement, press release guidelines, and sample Friends of the Library bylaws.

If you run a small public library, you have already found out that the lofty ideas in most management or marketing books exceed your time and financial constraints. Your problem is solved by this book—it was written just for you!

(The fact that Landau recommends both my blog and one of my books had no effect on this review, although it does indicate that he is a man of good taste.)

URL: to order the book:
http://www.alastore.ala.org/SiteSolution.taf?_sn=catalog2&_pn=product_detail&_op=2573

SUCCESSFUL LIBRARY PR EFFORTS

Recently I came across two articles describing very successful outreach or public relations efforts by academic libraries. Both appeared in Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship, the quarterly online-only journal from the Science and Technology Section of the Association of College & Research Libraries (a part of the American Library Association). They don’t have an RSS feed, but you can sign up for their mailing list which is used only to notify you of new issues of the journals. If you work in a sci-tech library, you should read this journal.

The first article is Science Experiments: Reaching Out to Our Users, by six science librarians from the University of Washington, Seattle (one of whom is now at Dartmouth College). A user survey discovered that many of their constituents weren’t aware of the library’s services, that most didn’t want to come into the physical library, and that the library’s web site was not in the users’ normal workflow. So, the librarians decided to “meet them in their spaces, lure them into our spaces,” and “use the middle ground that is the Internet.” They tried some really neat outreach efforts: setting up shop in the atrium of a building, geocaching, and setting up a blog, a virtual reading room, and a library presence on a departmental website.

Creating a BUZZ: Attracting SCI/TECH Students to the Library! is authored by eight librarians at Georgia Tech University in Atlanta. I was impressed that the library has an Information Services Marketing Group.” This group came up with the following “dynamic initiatives:” “an afternoon speaker series spotlighting exciting campus research” and “T-Paper, a hip, student-oriented restroom newsletter" (emphasis mine). The article has great photos of their efforts.

URLs:
Mailing list signup: http://listserver.library.ucsb.edu/mailman/listinfo/istl-updates
Science Experiments: http://www.istl.org/08-fall/article1.html
Creating a BUZZ: http://www.istl.org/06-winter/article2.html

BOOK REVIEW: POP GOES THE LIBRARY

Brookover, Sophie and Elizabeth Burns, Pop Goes the Library: Using Pop Culture to Connect With Your Whole Community, Medford, NJ: Information Today, Inc., 2008, ISBN 978-1-57387-336-9, US$39.50, foreword by Erin Helmrich, Teen Services Librarian, Ann Arbor District Library, Michigan

Based on their blog, Pop Goes the Library, Brookover, a Library Media Specialist at Eastern Regional HS, Voorhees, NJ (and formerly Senior Teen Librarian, Camden County Library System, Voorhees) and Burns: head of Youth Services, NJ Library for the Blind and Handicapped, Trenton and former lawyer, have created a wonderful guide to creating a library that will please and inspire your younger users.

In the introduction they write, “This book is about identifying and harnessing the power of your community’s pop culture.” (xvi) More of their mission comes from the blog’s manifesto: “We’re public librarians. We believe libraries can learn from and use Pop Culture to improve their collections, services, and public image. We love TV, music, the movies, comic books, anime, magazines, all things Net… you get the picture.” (xv) Even if you don’t work in a public library, you can learn from this book since we are all serving and marketing to the same people—and, increasingly, this means to younger people.

“To us, pop culture is whatever people in your community are talking, thinking, and reading about.” (3) Community can be the hospital, law firm, or organization you work for just as much as it refers to the people in a public library’s district. They encourage readers to talk to teens; they will be the future users of your library—public or special. They include a good section on trendspotting to help you become proactive, get ahead of the curve, and be prepared for the future. None of this is any good if you don’t tell your users of the new and exciting things you are doing, so there is a section on marketing. A long chapter is on information technology and stresses the importance of being at least somewhat IT literate, a problem many solos face. “Technology can both be pop culture in itself, and can be used in innovative ways to provide pop culture library services such as materials, programming, and outreach.” (112)

The biggest lesson Brookover and Burns make is that you shouldn’t work in isolation; use the combined talents and knowledge of your peers, management, and users to improve the library. One of the best features of the book is the Voices from the Field section at the end of each chapter. The “voices” are librarian responses to survey done by the authors in July 2007. There are three chapters and an appendix on programming, with a list of ideas month-by-month. Other appendices include websites and resources by chapter and a list of core pop culture resources for library professionals (e.g., print, web, video). There is an index. The book is supported by a web page with links to many of the resources in the book.

This is a great resource for any librarian, public or otherwise, who wants to bring a fresh approach to collection building and programming.

URLs:
The blog: http://www.popgoesthelibrary.com
The book’s web page: http://www.popgoesthelibrary.com/popbook

POST ARTICLES BY YOUR CUSTOMERS

This idea comes courtesy of a post by Christine Baker [POH Regional Medical Center, Pontiac, MI, USA] on MEDLIB-L.

Post the first page of recently published articles by your customers in the library. You could even frame them. After a stated length of time (or when you run out of room), you can give the framed page to the author. You could even get the author to write a short note about how the library helped him or her with research (maybe on a sticky note).

This would 1) build traffic (i.e., get people into the library), 2) make nice to your customers, and 3) publicize how the library helps people do their work.

I saw something along these lines at the Cleveland Clinic Alumni Library (I think)--articles and books by Clinic researchers in a display case outside the library.

TWO BLOG POSTS TO LOOK AT

Susan Akers [Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana, USA] posted some great ideas for Promoting Library Resources to Students & New Faculty on Marketing Your Library.

URL: http://www.marketingyourlibrary.com/2008/10/promoting-library-resources-to-students.html

Brian Herzog [Chelmsford (Massachusetts) Public Library, USA] raises some good points in Work Like a Patron Day on his Swiss Army Librarian blog. Look at your library through your customers’ eyes—it will really open your eyes!

URL: http://www.swissarmylibrarian.net/2008/10/07/work-like-a-patron-day

TOP 250 BLOG POSTS: ADVERTISING, MARKETING, MEDIA & PR

From British PR firm Spotlight Ideas, here are more articles on marketing than I’ve ever seen in one place. They are divided into the following categories: general marketing and branding (50 articles); digital marketing (35); social media (45); general blogging (25); blogging on copywriting (20); public relations (20); creative and design (20); customers and customer insight (10); search engines (10).

URL: http://www.spotlightideas.co.uk/?p=677

WHY NOT DO THIS WITH YOUR LIBRARY CARD?

You’ve seen the ads for making your own Capital One credit card. Now you can customize your Starbucks card. I think a good marketing tool would be to allow your customers to create their own library card.

URL: http://www.starbucks.com/mycard/