Real‐Life Marketing and Promotion Strategies in College Libraries: Connecting with Campus and Community

Citation

James, S. (2007), "Real‐Life Marketing and Promotion Strategies in College Libraries: Connecting with Campus and Community", Library Review, Vol. 56 No. 5, pp. 435-436. https://doi.org/10.1108/00242530710750699

We are dealing with busy people: everybody knows what the library is and does, do not they, so why should they bother to find out more? That is where the fun starts: students who have little or no idea of what we can give them beyond the loan of books, academics whose notion of the library is rooted some quarter of a century ago and who have little or no conception of what has changed in the interim and why and how that is important not just for them, but more crucially for their students. An exaggeration? After all we give our students induction sessions and announce new services to everyone by all means available to us. Perhaps, until I was in a University planning review meeting some while ago to be told by my academic colleagues that they had no idea of all the new electronic services we gave them; and that despite our newsletters, e‐mails and web pages. I was told quite categorically and from the horse's mouth that telling our academics about something once was not enough: once a week would be more like it.

Marketing is a constant necessity, but one that needs careful planning, not to mention meticulous and timely execution. Get any one stage wrong and the whole programme falls flat on its face. Imaginative ideas are great, but they must work and they must be a part of an overall strategy. Another of these handy little Haworth publications give us some useful practical advice and reminds us pretty constantly of the fundamentals about strategies, identification of target audiences, appropriateness of methods and the rest.

As usual, the contributions are by practitioners so they tell us what worked in particular colleges and situations. As usual, too, it is up to the reader to judge which of those situations best applies to their own library. I like the idea of the library party, although if we adopt it here we shall, I am sure, concentrate on more traditionally substantial (and liquid) fare than seems to be the case at Tunxis Community College: I know my users, and my colleagues. I am not sure that postcards would work with us, but text messaging would, and Frankenstein would puzzle our overseas students (except perhaps any Transylvanians), not to mention the home‐grown ones.

The title of Jane M. Verostek's contribution “Affordable, Effective and Realistic Marketing” pretty well sums up the whole volume. There is a short annotated directory of “Marketing Resources for the Busy Librarian”, papers on how to make best use of student focus groups and student assistance, and a timely contribution on marketing virtual reference: the honeymoon is over, apparently, although some of us feel as though we are still popping the question.

This volume goes straight now to my marketing team: unashamed plagiarism is the hallmark of many library initiatives. Its US source and college library focus belie a wider potential value. It can usefully go straight to any library's marketing people, both to remind them of the fundamentals and to give them some ideas that might – or might not, and deciding that can be an important part of the process – work with their own users.