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My journey into librarianship was a bit unusual: Unlike those who began as a page or in an LIS role fresh out of grad school, my library career started in marketing. It was my job to understand the many ways the library brought value to the community and to develop stories and campaigns that shed light on the best aspects of our work. I was so inspired by what I saw in our branches that I eventually pursued a library degree. And as I deepened my knowledge, I saw that libraries could benefit from more attention to external communication.
Wilmington Public Library enlists community input alongside vibrant in-house marketing to build excitement around innovative events. San José Public Library, CA, and Worcester Public Library, MA, received honorable mentions.
These are only a few of the wide-ranging limited edition library card iterations popping up seemingly everywhere. Why are all these libraries putting time and resources into small-run cards?
On April 25, the Peabody Awards revealed the list of 68 nominations for 2023, chosen from a field of 1,100 entries. This year’s contenders include popular TV series such as The Bear, Bluey, and Reservation Dogs, documentaries about Judy Blume and Little Richard, children’s programming, newscasts—and two offerings from public libraries: Milwaukee Public Library’s social media streams in the interactive and immersive media category, and Borrowed and Banned, a 10-episode podcast from Brooklyn Public Library in the podcast/radio category.
In 2023, Archibald’s work on two different projects generated enormous impact for the library and demonstrated that effective graphic design can make a difference in library programming.
The Kansas City Public Library (KCPL) and San Francisco Public Library (SFPL) last Thursday announced that they would team up on a Tackle Censorship campaign with a friendly wager on the game. As a result of Kansas City's 25–22 win last night, a library representative from SFPL will wear Kansas City gear and post a recording of themselves reading from a banned book on the library’s social media channels.
Faced with a major post-lockdown attendance drop, the marketing team at Baltimore's Enoch Pratt Free Library is re-engaging patrons with creative, data-driven campaigns. Patchogue Medford Library, NY, received honorable mention.
Brooke McCauley’s career spans activism and politics, anti-hunger/anti-poverty advocacy, and lobbying. In 2019, she learned about a new role at the Howard County Library System—customer experience manager—and made it her own.
With the COVID-19 vaccine rollout gaining momentum in the United States, libraries continue the process of reopening. They’ll need to get the word out to patrons about changing hours, resumed services, and in-person events. This product spotlight focuses on marketing platforms for libraries designed to help streamline outreach efforts via social media, email, newsletters, mobile messaging, and more.
Most of the time, library promotion involves a lot of announcements like, “We offer homework help” or “We’ve got a new website” or “Come to our program.” These promotions are informative, but they lack the one magical thing that people respond to: emotion.
Curtis Sittenfeld spoke about her new book Rodham with LJ Reference & Professional Reading Editor Mahnaz Dar. The conversation was a culmination of the #LJReads book club program, which invited LJ readers to discuss the novel on Twitter. Taking questions from the live audience on Zoom, Sittenfeld touched on the challenges of crafting Rodham, a narrative that envisions Hillary Clinton’s life had she opted not to marry Bill.
Whether lobbying legislators for funding libraries or a foundation for new shelving, public library leaders, communications staff, and even frontline workers need to be efficient and nimble when articulating their impacts to outside stakeholders. Crucially, they need to approach the question from the vantage of how the library’s outcomes align with that particular stakeholder’s mission.
Merchandising can be implemented strategically at libraries, just as it is in retail, and can increase circulation, stimulate robust discussions, and generate foot traffic. To drive circ, how you showcase your materials can be as important as what you buy.
Over the years, public libraries have expanded their electronic collections. The evolution of library interfaces has allowed many physical services to extend into a digital space, empowering patrons to check out ebooks, read magazines and journals, stream movies, listen to audiobooks, and more. The demand for digital collections only continues to grow.
What can a marketing firm offer library boards, Friends, or foundations, and can your average library support organization—which may not have deep pockets or a large existing donor base—afford one?
Following an investigation into Santa Cruz Public Libraries’ use of Gale Analytics on Demand, a California grand jury reported on June 24 that the use of data analytics tools by libraries “is a potential threat to patron privacy and trust.”
The Panorama Project—a multi-partner library and publishing industry initiative to research the impact that libraries have on book and author discovery, brand development, and retail sales—this week announced the launch of “Panorama Picks,” a free program offering librarians, publishers, and booksellers a topline assessment of regional library demand for recently published ebook titles.
Kitchener Public Library, Ont., serves a city of about 252,000 people. One of our missions in the community is to ignite conversations. Our premier 85 Queen series, which takes place at and is named for our flagship Central Library location, features in-depth events: not just a reading from a big-name author but an interview conducted by an experienced journalist; not just a screening of a controversial film but a panel of experts to discuss it; and not just an appearance from famous musician but full concert-style performances with storytelling.
At first glance, the image looks like the logo of a well-known shopping site or search engine; a closer look reveals the clever new marketing campaign from Milwaukee Public Library (MPL), WI.
The New York Public Library (NYPL) introduced Insta Novels on August 22, posting a newly digitized, illustrated version of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll on its official Instagram account. The concept has been an immediate success.
The State Library of Ohio has launched Libraries by the Numbers (LBTN), a web-based data visualization tool that enables users to create custom infographics about individual library systems using data drawn from their Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) Public Library Surveys.
Sterling Heights Public Library, MI, has been offering BrainHQ, an online suite of gamified brain training exercises available to libraries through Demco’s partnership with Posit Science, as a component of a yearlong community initiative called “Exercise Your Brain!”
In the second quarter of 2017, Facebook grew to more than two billion monthly active users, including 236 million in the United States and Canada—two-thirds of the combined population of those countries. According to a recent report in Forbes, Twitter’s growth has been slowing somewhat, but the number of average monthly active users on the platform grew five percent year-over-year to 328 million worldwide in Q217. According to a recent report in TechCrunch, Instagram has doubled its user base during the past two years, reaching 700 million monthly active users this spring. Social media is where people are online, so libraries need to be there, too.
Library staff are the folks who love to talk about books. The more people we reach and can inspire, the happier we are. We also love to talk about libraries and their place in our society and share ideas about how to make libraries a better place for our users.
Facebook Live is video streamed over Facebook and archived there afterwards. All libraries need to get started is a smartphone/tablet and the Facebook app, or a webcam attached to a computer running the Google Chrome browser.
Matthew Ismail loves to challenge assumptions, and as Director of Collection Development at Central Michigan University for the last five years, with stints at libraries in United Arab Emirates and Egypt before that, he’s seen plenty of them. “We librarians assume that patrons will come to us,” says Ismail, who holds four Master’s degrees, one being an MLS from Kent State. “In the 1980s, they had to come to us, there was no internet. Today, many people are able to complete their careers without using the library at all. That would have been more difficult in the 1980s.”
Libraries and LEGO have gone together for ages, but libraries made of LEGO bricks are much more rare. So when I received a box containing a little library constructed of LEGO bricks, it got my attention. That alone is a win for any marketing initiative—getting someone to tune in. Good marketing is hard to do, and harder for organizations such as libraries that do so much already with limited resources. When it’s done right, however, both the community and the library benefit.
Few libraries were untouched by the economic downturn of the 2000s. As systems began to rebound, however, a challenge was to replace the perception that they were down and out with the new reality of extended hours, replenished staff, and improved services. The strongest marketers among them also focused on the stories behind those comebacks, and information about what users could expect going forward. The Charlotte Mecklenburg Library (CML), in the city of Charlotte and County of Mecklenburg, NC, was determined not just to recover but to come back stronger than ever, to make sure its customers knew it—and to give them a chance to tell their side of the story.
On August 8 Gale, a part of Cengage Learning, announced that it will provide its Analytics on Demand (AOD) service to EveryLibrary, a national nonprofit political action committee for libraries, free of charge, so that it may better analyze data about library supporters in advance of the November elections and on an ongoing basis for future campaigns.
Linked data consulting and development company Zepheira is partnering with several vendors and libraries on the Library.Link Network, a project that promises to make relevant information about libraries, library events, and library collections prominent in search engine results. The service aims to address a longstanding problem. The world’s library catalogs contain a wealth of detailed, vetted, and authoritative data about books, movies, music, art—all types of content. But the bulk of library data is stored in MARC records. The bots that major search engines use to scan and index the web generally cannot access those records.
A new report published March 29, “Core Customer Intelligence: Public Library Reach, Relevance, and Resilience,” brings together market segmentation from ten public library systems across the United States to explore how libraries can examine and act on granular data about their core customers—the 20 percent of cardholders who check out the most physical materials. Using 2014 customer and checkout data to group top library users by lifestyles, interests, preferences, and behaviors, the study drills down into community demographics to reveal that core customers aren’t found in any one segment of the population but occur across all lines, reflecting the diversity of their communities.
The days when our colleges and universities did mass mailings to huge numbers of high school students is coming to an end. As with many other things, the Internet and social media have changed everything.
Public libraries in the United States have traditionally relied on local support for the vast majority of their revenue. While this is still largely true, the funding landscape is getting more diverse, and there is a greater need for libraries to be increasingly creative when it comes to balancing base funding with new sources. Money allocated at the local level rarely stretches far enough to cover staffing, operations, collection development, and programming, let alone experimentation to invent or test innovative new services. Local funding is also subject to political winds as administrations change.
The aim of merchandising is to make each library’s collection as effective as possible. Great merchandising forms the bridge between the library and the patron—it helps readers discover books beyond the best sellers on the holds shelf. The challenge for libraries is that merchandising is a specialty in its own right.
Finding great books is getting even harder now as more and more books are published every year. Nearly a million new books flooded the market last year alone—about half of them self-published. LJ’s Patron Profiles data shows that libraries can be a great source for book discovery—32 percent of patrons find books to read or borrow from libraries. But there are still many more readers to reach. Readers’ advisory and online discovery both continue to play big roles in connecting readers to new titles, authors, and even genres they might not have sought out on their own. In the physical space, there is much more that can be done by reinventing how libraries approach the art of the display.
Library app developers Capira Technologies and BluuBeam have separately announced the launch of micro location information services that will enable libraries to send highly targeted, location-relevant messages to Bluetooth-enabled Android and iOS smartphones.
We’re all familiar with the old saying that a picture is worth 1,000 words. But when it comes to communication with our patrons, whether existing or potential, many in libraryland are more comfortable crafting the 1,000 words than the graphics to sit alongside—or replace—them.
Much of the mainstream media coverage concerning libraries these days is focused on the challenges they face, escalating budget cuts, and questions about their relevance in today’s world. Library resource vendor Gale, part of Cengage Learning, wants to help turn those perceptions around and show libraries in a more positive light. On September 30 Gale launched My Library Story (MLS), an online community where people can share the many different ways libraries have changed and enriched their lives.
Tuesday, October 14th, 2014, 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM ET / 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM PT During this insightful discussion moderated by Aaron Schmidt, Principal, Influx Library User Experience and LJ columnist (The User Experience), library branding mavens will share the basics of branding and identity development, show examples from their successful efforts, and share practical tips that you can implement right away. Register Now!
Libraries have always been second homes to many writers. Two programs are hoping to further encourage that relationship starting this fall and into the future. The Public Library of Cincinnati’s Writer-In-Residence program and the CHP in the Stacks residency program from publishing company Coffee House Press (CHP) will give select writers stipends to do their work in a library while helping publicize that library’s resources to the community.
Libraries are about much more than books. This simple truth bears repeating in light of the response to Amazon’s July announcement of the Kindle Unlimited ebook subscription service and the all too many reductive and ill-informed reactions that followed.
Lobbying for libraries can be a painfully earnest affair. But not so in New York State, where the New York Library Association (NYLA) adopted a playful new strategy to reach legislators and their staffs where they may be at their most receptive—relaxing with a drink after work. NYLA didn’t break the rules by buying beverages for lawmakers…it simply provided a coaster for them.
What would happen if your library’s website disappeared? You’d probably get a lot of phone calls. f I had to guess, most would be about: Finding library items, renewing library items, and library hours and locations. This thought experiment gives us some perspective about the things library websites should be focusing on—the critical tasks users are trying to accomplish. It also offers perspective on the aspects of our websites that are comparatively unimportant—everything else.
In this first of an interview series sponsored by SAGE, LJ goes in depth with this year’s Movers & Shakers from academic libraries, delving into just how and why they pulled off the projects that brought them recognition as innovators, change agents, and more. Karen Lauritsen was chosen as one of this year’s Tech Leaders for her work as Communications & Public Programs Coordinator at the Robert E. Kennedy Library of California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo.
In an internal Random House memo, Jen Childs, director of Library Marketing, reported that the department’s latest initiative, First Look Book Club, took off to a roaring start in February, with 2,500 subscribers opting in. The club, a new book discovery tool, is an offshoot of Suzanne Beecher’s Dear Reader, which began offering five-minute chapter snippets in 2000. While many libraries subscribe to Dear Reader for a fee (it is free to library patrons), the First Look Book Club is free to all and goes direct to librarians, patrons, and “book lovers everywhere,” said Childs, with one Random House title featured each week.
Librarian Sharon McKellar and other staff at the Oakland Public Library, CA, have been collecting notes and other items found in between pages of books or left on the floors and tables of the library for years. McKellar got the idea to document the library staff’s collection of these objects when she stumbled on the website for Found Magazine. When she was put in charge of developing the library’s website and blog, she decided to ask fellow librarians, library assistants and aides, and other staff if she could scan their found items.
There’s no better way to market your library than to have your users do it for you. Think about what it takes you personally to make a decision on trying out a new product or service—you’re bombarded with advertising messages 24/7, most of which you’ve probably learned to tune out and ignore, so when someone you trust and respect says to you ‘have you tried this specific example?’ you instantly value their recommendation above the white noise of traditional marketing. They are independent of any brand, they are speaking from their own experience—they are like you.
With all the excitement over social media and reports of newspapers closing or shifting focus to keep ad revenues rolling in, libraries have taken a hit with ever decreasing coverage. You might even be thinking whether it’s worth the effort to create media releases. The quick answer is yes. If well written and interesting they can amplify your message reaching reporters, bloggers and the general public through your web and social media channels. But if you want to have larger value-driven articles published, you’ll need to step up your game and pitch those story ideas to reporters.
The Wilmington Memorial Library in Massachusetts created a community supported agriculture pick-up point in June for Wilmington residents who have CSA shares with Farmer Dave's of Dracut.
If you’re reading this, I’m sure you’re already aware how important Twitter is to libraries. 32 percent of Internet users are on the platform, but more importantly, they’re OUR type of Internet users! There is a strong overlap in the kinds of people who use libraries (or would do if they knew what we offered) and the kinds of people who tweet. And unlike some other social media, Twitter users are receptive to interacting with libraries on this platform.
I recently attended three award ceremonies for Library Journal’s LibraryAware Community Award at the Canton, OH, Skokie, IL, and Hartford, CT public libraries. For all three, the community has stood up to say they value all the services the library provides to the community. The competition was tough: more than 100 libraries applied for the award. With so many communities supporting the library, you would think we are in the golden age of libraries. And yet just this past January the Pew Institute report, Library Services in the Digital Age, stated that only 22 percent of those surveyed say that they know all or most of the services their libraries offer now. Ouch. Okay, so there’s still work to be done. But perhaps the work isn’t what you might expect.
At first glance, a partnership between libraries and airports may seem a case of strange bedfellows. Libraries offer space for concentration and relaxation, while airports are notoriously stressful and full of distractions. But the venues do have one thing in common: in both, users are looking for something to read.
Offering commonsensical, yet often overlooked, advice, this session proposed that non-users cannot effectively be reached by focus groups, surveys on the library website, or other such mechanisms that may be useful for capturing the opinions of active library patrons. To reach this other group, libraries must go where they already are: malls, daycare centers, coffee shops, commuter rail stations, houses of worship, farmer's markets, senior programs, etc.
This fall a new national “library staff picks list” will debut under the name LibraryReads. All public library staff will be welcome to nominate new adult titles that they have read, loved, and are eager to share with patrons via the website libraryreads.org, which will go live today at noon. The ten most frequently recommended titles will be calculated monthly, and beginning this autumn, the resulting list will be publicized and promoted by librarians in branches as well as in patron newsletters, websites, etc.
If there are over 1 billion people on Facebook and the Twitterverse can help topple governments, then it only makes sense that libraries would also be using these two social media channels to connect with their communities, right? Well yes and no. Libraries are using social media, that’s clear. According to Library Journal’s Survey on Public Library Marketing Methods and Best Practices, 86 percent of libraries said they were using social media. The top two social media platforms used by libraries were Facebook (99 percent) and Twitter (56 percent). Pinterest is making some gains, with 30 percent of libraries reporting that they are pinning. The problem is that 48 percent of libraries surveyed said they weren’t measuring their efforts at all. While the survey didn’t ask if libraries are getting fans to interact with them, most libraries I have spoken with lately have said they were still struggling with that.
If you make one small change to the way you contextualise your marketing efforts, it can yield big results. It’s subtle but important, and here’s how to go about it. Marketing libraries is a tough business, for all kinds of reasons. Lack of time, lack of funds, lack of other resources. The fact that public perception of what libraries actually do is about 15 years behind the reality in a lot of cases. But also the fact that there’s often a fundamental misunderstanding about what marketing should actually achieve.
Every April, the Toronto Public Library (TPL) runs its Keep Toronto Reading program, a month-long celebration which includes a big community read of a single title. But this is the first year patrons will be able to enter, and interact with, the world of the chosen book.
Will marketing result in increased funding? According to Library Journal’s November survey, most libraries think not—unless your library is serving a population of 500K+. Then 70 percent of the participants believe marketing helped. Interestingly, the majority of those surveyed from libraries of all sizes believed marketing increased their perceived value to elected officials and the community at large. If libraries could apply the influence of advocacy to their marketing strategies, they might see an increase their funding.
New York City’s underground transit system may be the final digital frontier: on the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA)’s hundreds of miles of subterranean track, Internet access is not available. But a speculative ad campaign has suggested that a Wi-Fi-free digital information exchange on the subway is possible—and could boost library readership. The one minute “Underground Library” commercial from students at the Miami Ad School promotes an as-yet nonexistent library program which would allow smartphone users to download book extracts from the New York Public Library (NYPL) during their commutes.
The Free Library of Philadelphia will launch what it calls the first virtual library at a U.S. train station on April 2. Throughout National Library Month (April), commuters will be able to download books, music, and podcasts by scanning QR codes placed on 76 advertising boards on Philly’s Suburban Station platforms.
The SXSW Interactive conference in Austin, TX, is all about bringing together different elements—technology, play, education, and branding—to create new and memorable experiences for the attendees. Last year, librarians Cindy Fisher and Andrea Davis raised the profile of the Libraries Archives and Museums (LAM) group at SXSW by organizing a conversation around #sxswLAM on Twitter and getting librarians and festival goers to sport the group's signature zebra print. This year, the sxswLAMers wanted to think of a way to get people to really 'interact' with libraries during the festival. Inspired by the bicycle-powered taxis that shuttle around stranded conference goers during the festival, Fisher and Davis came up with the idea of a mobile pedicab library.
When I started my blog in 2006, I named it The ‘M’ Word, because marketing was considered to be taboo for many in the library field. While the latest survey by Library Journal would indicate the needle has moved a bit, there is little doubt that many libraries still have a long road ahead of them. In that survey, fewer than 20 percent of all libraries have a marketing plan in place, and only 11 percent report that it is up-to-date. If that number doesn’t shock you, let’s talk about what it means not to have a marketing plan.
In the U.K., patients who consult their doctor about mental health issues may be prescribed a book from the library instead of, or in addition to, medication or counseling. The plan, called Books on Prescription, will start in May. Doctor’s prescriptions will give patients immediate membership at the local library, and include recommended titles from a list of 30 compiled by nonprofit The Reading Agency. They include both medical nonfiction and feel-good fiction, according to The Independent.
Say what you will about librarians, they keep their promises and make good on their debts. So when the San Francisco Public Library (SFPL) lost a Superbowl bet with the Enoch Pratt Free Library of Baltimore, MD, SFPL Librarian Luis Herrera wasted no time keeping his end of the bargain: he recited Edgar Allan Poe’s "The Raven" in the atrium of the SFPL Main Library wearing a Ravens jersey, and posted the results on YouTube.
This is the first in a series of articles in which Nancy Dowd will examine the results of an exclusive survey of library professionals from more than 400 public libraries across the U.S. on public library marketing. The survey was conducted jointly with the NoveList division of EBSCO Publishing.
As more higher education providers offer their wares to students in an ever-expanding array of price and structure options, we can expect to see more competitive positioning among the players. Where would the academic library fit into this environment?
Are you video-marketing your library yet? If you are, you probably already know how effective it can be; if you aren't, by the end of this column I hope to have convinced you that it's not just essential but infinitely achievable.
In New York City, Macy’s holiday window displays and the admiring crowds they draw are a staple of the Christmas season. But for the last couple of years, the windows of the chain’s flagship have celebrated something besides Christmas that’s more unexpected: the New York Public Library (NYPL).
Lansdowne Public Library’s “Read It” video, based on Michael Jackson’s “Beat It”, was originally yanked from YouTube for a copyright violation. But the story may have a happy ending: the library director told LJ that "The Lansdowne Public Library ‘Read It!’ parody is back up on YouTube and I believe that it will stay there."
Auraria Library in Denver won the Out-of-the-Box Marketing Contest, launched by Gale, part of Cengage Learning, at the inaugural R-Squared Risk and Reward Conference this September.
Kansas State University Salina and Kansas Wesleyan University partnered to create a graphic novel that explains how to conduct effective library research. Heidi Blackburn, undergraduate services librarian at Kansas State Salina, and Kate Wise, associate librarian at Kansas Wesleyan, worked with Kansas State Salina student Greg Charland to create storyboards. Blackburn and Wise wrote the instructional portion, and Charland co-wrote and illustrated the result: Legends of the Library Ninjas: A Quest for Knowledge.
We hear the word advocacy used a lot these days. And I have heard definitions of advocacy that are all over the board. Some people define advocacy as speaking up about the importance of a topic (such as libraries) to their friends, neighbors, and even strangers they may encounter. Others talk about advocacy as being a targeted public awareness effort. For purposes of this column, I will be referring to advocacy as a political process in which we speak to our elected officials about the importance of an issue and request specific action on their behalf such as increasing funding for the issue.
In an effort to benefit the Massachusetts Library Association (MLA) while showcasing the diverse men and women who promote library services to the state’s teens and children, the Youth Services Section of the MLA will soon begin selling the “Tattooed Youth Librarian Calendar.” To produce the calendar, sixteen models from libraries throughout the state participated in a September 16 photo shoot, produced by a local photographer on a volunteer basis.
The San Francisco Public Library has announced the winners of its Library Card Design Contest organized by ImproveSF, a citywide program designed to help the local government to work directly with its citizens on different projects. Five winning designs—one from each of five age/grade categories—were ultimately selected from a field of 3,500 entries submitted in September and October. A panel of judges initially winnowed the field to 10 finalists in each age group; the public then selected the winners by voting at ImproveSF.com.
On October 19 the Fayetteville, AR, Public Library (FPL), LJ’s 2005 Library of the Year, rolled out the red carpet for 500 ticket holders as part of a Hollywood style premiere of its first film, Up Among the Hills: The Story of Fayetteville.
Need to read The Art of War? At Texas A&M’s libraries, the odds are ever in your favor. The library’s new orientation and marketing video is a ‘tribute’ to the bestselling YA book The Hunger Games and its movie adaptation.
This week we made a big – organizational and personal – announcement: I have been selected as CML’s new Chief Customer Experience Officer. The CXO, for short. Wow!
