Slide 1: THE VISIBLE LIBRARIAN: ADVOCACY AND MARKETING
Judith Siess Information Bridges International SLA Virtual Seminar 19 November 2003
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Slide 2: Who Am I?
Librarian since 1982 (UIUC, GSLIS, MSLIS) First job, solo for biotechnology research company Other positions: NASA, contract chemical R&D firm, manufacturer of controls for industrial processes. In 1996, left corporate America to start my own company—to build bridges between librarians in the USA and the rest of the world. 1997, Guy St. Clair offered me The OnePerson Library newsletter, changing my life. Now: Editor and publisher of OPL with ~400 subscribers (one-third outside the USA) Author of 4 books from 3 different publishers Presenter of workshops around the world (Berlin, London, Barcelona, Vancouver, New York, San Francisco, etc.) But, most importantly, I am a librarian—and proud of it! 2
Slide 3: POLLING QUESTION What is the size of your library staff?
1 FTE or less professional, NO support staff 1 FTE or less professionals, With support staff 2-5 professionals Over 5 professionals
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Slide 4: Why the VISIBLE librarian?
After Harry Beckwith’s book, Selling the Invisible: A Field Guide to Modern Marketing. The invisible is service.
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Slide 5: Topics to be covered
Customer Service Marketing Publicity Public Relations Advocacy
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Slide 6: Customer Service is Job 1
What do customers expect?
To be appreciated. To get what they ordered. Accurate, timely, and valuable information. Friendly employees. An attractive and easy-to-use facility. A wide and well-reasoned selection of resources.
But most importantly, customers want their problems solved.
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Slide 7: The “convenience catastrophe”
Trying to make customers self-sufficient, often in the name of “empowerment,” or even “library education” Do our customers really want to do our jobs? Of course not. Our customers want and need intermediaries; they want and need service.
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Slide 8: POLLING QUESTION: Do You Market?
Which of the following marketing activities have you engaged in? Open House Brochure User Training Newsletter User Survey Needs Assessment Web Page
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Slide 9: Marketing: The Five W’s and an H
Why Who What When Where How
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Slide 10: Why market?
If no one knows about your library and how it can help your customers meet their goals, the library will not—and should not—continue to exist. Overlooked eventually can mean unemployed.
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Slide 11: Who Should Market?
You, the librarian. Why?
No one else will do it for you. You know your library better than anyone else. You know—or should know—your organization and customers best. No one has more to gain from marketing or more to lose if you don’t market.
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Slide 12: What to Market?
Current products and services. Products and services you could provide if there was funding or support.
But remember, the real product of your library is answers!
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Slide 13: Questions???
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Slide 14: More on what Who is your competition?
The Internet? Direct sales by vendors to the end-user? Asking a nearby colleague? Making a phone call to another library or information center? None of the above. The library’s biggest and most dangerous competitor is simply… doing without.
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Slide 15: Who are your customers?
What do they need? How do you find out what your customers need or want?
Ask them! Combination of survey and interviews.
Don’t forget to include people who are not library users. Ask them why don’t they use the library. Have they encountered problems with service or staff in the past that have turned them off of the library?
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Slide 16: When to Market?
Always. They are especially receptive at the time of need. You can also cross-sell—when you deliver one piece of information, you can also promote another product or service.
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Slide 17: Where to Market?
Within your own institution or community.
To present customers. To possible customers. To the people with the money.
To customers outside your institution.
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Slide 18: How to Market?
Marketing is not hard. It just takes organization and some good ideas. Make a plan.
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Slide 19: Ranganthan Does Marketing
Library Resources Are for Use.
If a resource is not being used, it should be either eliminated or marketed. It is not enough to make customers happy. We must “delight” them. Do more than they expect. Positioning. Branding.
Every Customer His or Her Library Resources.
Every Library Resource Its Customer.
Save the Time of the Customer.
The librarian’s mantra; better, cheaper, and faster. Better is subjective, cheaper is often irrelevant, BUT, faster is a measurable benefit. Nothing is constant. Make it easy for your customers to tell you what you did well and what was done poorly.
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A Library Is a Growing Organism.
Slide 20: Questions???
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Slide 21: Publicity
The Tangibles
Definition: everything that is on paper or in electronic form.
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Slide 22: Good Publicity
Keep it simple. Tailor your publicity to the audience you want to reach. Make sure it still looks professional. But, don’t obsess over it—it’s only a small part of your job.
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Slide 23: Brochures
If you do one, make it a good one. Use targeted brochures. Make it eye-catching and professional. Try a question-and answer format. Get them to your customers!
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Slide 24: Business Cards
Make your card (and you) stand out. But don’t be too different. Use your brand (style). Use your degrees.
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Slide 25: Newsletters
Every library should have a newsletter. What to include? Have a consistent format and regular schedule. A “just-in-time” e-mail newsletter is interactive, current, inexpensive, cheap, and easy. How about different newsletters for different audiences?
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Slide 26: Bulletin Boards and Display Cases
Easy and cheap. Use a portable easel for a portable bulletin board. Think of a display case as a superboard. Change all displays frequently.
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Slide 27: Giveaways
Use your established color scheme and mascot or slogan. Put on everything: the library’s name, address, phone and fax numbers, email address, and URL Quality is important.
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Slide 28: Your signature can sell
Keep it short, simple, and discreet. Included in my sig file:
Judith A. Siess President, Information Bridges International, Inc. /I\B/I\ Editor/Publisher of The One-Person Library Author of The Visble Librarian: Asserting Your Value Through Marketing and Advocacy, ALA Editions
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Slide 29: Your Web Page
Content is king. Set up internal electronic discussion groups or bulletin boards to facilitate communication within the organization or with outsiders. Keep it short and simple. Have the links your customers need.
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Slide 30: Your web site, continued
Make it easy for customers to submit new sites, suggestions, questions, and requests. Try personalized library portals. Post photos of the library or library events. Think like your customers. Plan a campaign to make your users aware of the web site.
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Slide 31: Public Relations:
The Personal Touch
Get out of the library! Try an Open House.
Deliver items to customers in person. Visit a department you know little about or in which you have few customers. Visit major branch locations. Planning is the key, but food brings them in. National Library Week is okay, but… Follow up afterwards.
Look at your library. Is it inviting? Can the Call into your own library.
customer find information without help? Can he or she find you? Will he or she want to come back?
Is the greeting friendly, accurate, and clear? Ask a question. When you’re not there…
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Slide 32: Prepare an elevator speech and a 30-second commercial
Elevator speech
Start with a provocative statement or question. Introduce yourself. Make the pitch. Request action. Tell them who you are, what you do, and what you can do for them.
30-second commercial
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Slide 33: Questions???
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Slide 34: Advocacy:
Putting it all Together
No one sees us….
reading reviews reading manuals following electronic discussions cataloging searching for a hard-to-find article searching five different databases going to budget meetings buttonholing management to get a few more dollars for the library
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Slide 35: How did we get into this mess?
Customers don’t know the work (and money) that went into making online resources available. We concentrate too much on saving money.
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Slide 36: “Put your money where your mouth is, sir.”
Support from management or the community must be accompanied by money or it is worthless.
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Slide 37: What Can We Do?
Stop moaning. Align yourself with the strategic objectives of the parent organization. Communicate your worth to management, in their own language. Show that the value of what you do easily meets or exceeds the amount spent on the library.
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Slide 38: Dealing with budget cuts
Explain the consequences of the cut to management. No money, no service. Cut services that will “hurt” someone.
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Slide 39: Champions
You need all the supporters you can get. At as high a level as you can. Let your champions stand up and fight for your and your library.
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Slide 40: Professionalism: It’s More Than a Suit
Yes, dress the part, but it is more important to act the part. Continuing education is absolutely imperative. You’ll have to find it and maybe even for it. Network! A network is everyone you know that who can help you or whom you can help. Must be reciprocal. Give back to the profession. You learned from and were helped by others and should do the same for colleagues and students. Do something to improve the public’s perception of a 40 librarian. Be proud to be a librarian.
Slide 41: What image do we want?
To become the person who reaches out to others to bring them the answers—or perhaps the means to discover those answers for themselves?
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Slide 42: Changing in the phone booth…
It is time to take off our cloak of invisibility, timidity, complacency, and modesty and reveal ourselves to the world as we really are and can be… The Visible Librarian!
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Slide 43: POLLING QUESTION 3 Now What?
What is the first thing you are going to do after this seminar? Plan a marketing event Perform a needs analysis or user survey Hire or appoint a marketing expert Nothing Other
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Slide 44: Questions???
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Slide 45: THANK YOU!
For more help, contact me (no charge)
Email: jsiess@ibi-opl.com Phone: 1-216-486-7743 Fax: 1-216-486-8810
Our next seminar is on: December 3, 2003 from 2:00-3:30 PM ET “Business Planning: Building the Plan and the Buy-in”
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