Saving Money the Library Way

I love LinkedIn.  I just found this great article there: How the Library Helps You Cut Corners from The Epoch Times.  Lots of great reasons to love you library and go there more often.

More reasons to visit the library

Really the same great reasons, but we can't say it often enough.  The library offers a great value to it's community.  This article from Money Talk News offers "7 Reasons to Revisit the Library."  Everything from books to music, free wi-fi, free classes, and socializing.  Come to the library.  There's something for everyone.

Do Surveys Matter?

Here's a great article from Illinois Libraries Matter discussing the need for surveys at the library.  How can we possibly know what our patrons know about their library or want from their library if we don't ask them? 
But how do we get them to fill out and return a survey form?

Why do we still need libraries?

Ever been stumped when someone asks this question?  Here's a blog post that'll give you the answers you need to never get stumped again. 

What Color is Your Library?

Here's a link to an article by Pam Dyer at SocialMedia Today about the use of color in marketing.  It includes two excellent infographics from the Logo Company and Kissmetrics depicting how color affects consumers and how marketers can more effective use color in branding.

Dyer also quotes statistics that show that color:

• Increases brand recognition by up to 80%
• Improves readership as much as 40%
• Increases comprehension by 73%
• Can be up to 85% of the reason people decide to buy

Something to think about when creating posters, handouts, bookmarks, and bibliographies in the library -- the colors we choose can affect how receptive people are to our messages.

Are Libraries Passe?

There's a major flap going on in the UK over whether or not libraries still serve a purpose.  Children's author Terry Deary commented in an article in the Guardian that book stores are being forced to close "because someone is giving away the product they are tyring to sell."
On Friday, another top selling and top borrowed children's author, Julia Donaldson, commented in a rebuttal article that Deary's logic was severely flawed because libraries don't harm the book trade, they create readers. 
The article also goes on to say that since he made his comments Deary has been flooded with hate mail and some of his most vociferous critics have been other authors.  What a shock .. most authors love libraries because they know we love their books, promote their books, and turn people on to their books.  People who just might go out and buy one or two.  I'm sorry Deary thinks we're robbing him of his justly due royalties, but if he thinks parents can afford to buy every kids' book their kids want to read he's dreaming. AND if he really believes that compulsory education exposes kids to literature and books the same way that a library can, I bet he's sending his kids to a private (or is that public) school.
The good news is all the wonderful authors who've spoken up in defense of libraries and who champion the cause.  But it's time libraries championed their own cause a little more.  We shouldn't even need to have this debate.  And if we are having it, it's because we're not letting the public know just how relevant libraries are.

How does your library's website rate?

Here's a great blog post about the importance of the library's website from the reDUX blog from the Libraries of Indiana University.  In "The Library Website as Place," author Anne Haines explores the idea that "... our website serves as our front door for a rapidly increasing percentage of users, and it needs to be at least as welcoming, as professional, and as helpful as our physical entry points are."

What are they up to in your library?

And how do we let people know?

There's a new "exclusive" marketing study out at Library Journal.  It seems libraries have been weighed in the balance and found wanting where getting the word out is concerned.  We seem to be the best kept secret of the century (and the last century, too).  Click here to read Nancy Dowd's article at LJ (first in a series) about the marketing survey and what libraries can do about it.

Welcome to the Library

There's a great discussion going on at the Marketing Public Libraries Think Tank group at Linkedin.  Do we send out welcome emails to new card holders?  If so what do we include in the message?  Some libraries give out welcome packets with each new card including the latest newsletter, library hours, etc.   No consensus yet on what the goals are and if you're not sure what you're going to accomplish how can you measure it?
We try to get an email address for each new patron who signs up for a library card.  It comes in very handy for email notifications about holds, upcoming due dates, programs and the like.  And, of course, all the notifications from Overdrive about downloads go through the patron's email address.  But we don't send out a welcome to the library message.  What would we say?  Should we have a welcome packet?  I like the idea of a refrigerator magnet complete with our web address, hours, and phone number. 
But what about an email?  Will they read it?  Or will they just hit delete and toss it out with the spam?

This Just In! Libraries Very Important Say Americans!!

The Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project (Funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) conducted a survey to find out what the average American thinks about public libraries.  You can see the article, Library Services in the Digital Age, describing the survey results  here.  The findings are very encouraging, and in those cities where councils are making a mad dash to slash budgets on the backs of library funding, please note:

"Fully 91% of Americans ages 16 and older say public libraries are important to their communities; and 76% say libraries are important to them and their families."  Now THAT is a mandate.

Respondents cited borrowing books and free access to computers and the Internet as "very important" in almost equal amounts.  Librarians too are considered a valuable library asset. 

But "just 22% say that they know all or most of the services their libraries offer now."  This looks like a good place for some creative marketing ideas.

This is a valuable piece of research and a useful tool for libraries and librarians, to see where we are doing well, where we are falling short, and where we should be headed for the future. 

The end of Reference?

I visited a local library yesterday that has done away with its Reference collection.   The books are gone, the space has been repurposed.  There is a small ready reference collection behind the Information desk.  I noticed several copies of the most popular college guides in the circulating non-fiction collection.  I hope some of their other reference works have also been moved to circulating non-fiction.  There is a print encyclopedia in a corner of the YA department.  The head of Adult Reference explained that she felt the collection was unused and therefore unnecessary.

I wonder.

The Reference collection is the most underused collection in the library.  But does that mean it is unnecessary?  I don't think so.  I think it is time to re-think the Reference collection.

To that end I did a little (very little) research and found this blog post from Brian Herzog, the Swiss Army Librarian (cool library blog), about the overhaul he gave the reference collection in his library in Massachusetts. In brief, they weeded the heck out of the collection, moved many of the single volume books into circulating non-fiction, and converted the remaining reference collection into small, free-standing, easily accessible subject collections.  The circulating reference is 7-day, non-renewable, and non-requestable (by other libraries). They converted the space into three 8x8 quiet study rooms.

I like it.

I like that there's still a Reference collection.  If we dump the entire collection aren't we throwing up our hands and saying 'Google wins'?  I like the fact that Herzog recognized that patrons want more access to the books not less.  Is it scary to let a big, expensive reference book walk out under the arm of a teenager?  Absolutely.  But isn't it scarier to let that kid go home thinking the library is a pain in the butt and it's easier to find his answers on Google?

I think it's time to reintroduce our patrons to the Reference collection.  Tell them what we've got.  Show them how it can help.  It's time for a little good old fashioned marketing.  Maybe some subject heading signs next to the Dewey numbers.  Maybe a display of some eye-catching Reference.  Could we make the first 5 photocopies free if its a Reference Book?  And maybe, just maybe it's time to let them check a few of our babies out.

Study like a scholar ... in the library

I love this video.

Have you ever felt like you were being watched?

I've been following an interesting conversation at the ALA group on LinkedIn about a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, Your E-Book is Reading You.  I suppose it was only a matter of time before we all found out that eReaders can and do collect data about us.
It shouldn't be a surprise.  Advertising and merchandising has always been dependent on an understanding of the customer.   Being able to find out so much about what readers do and do not like about their books is a treasure trove to publishers.
One problem I see is that it's early days for eReaders.  Not everyone uses an eReader, not everything is available on eReaders.  So the data set publishers are using reflects the reading tastes of only a percentage of all the readers and potential readers out there. 
Meanwhile, the data they're collecting: how long it takes a reader to finish a book, where they stopped, what they highlighted, doesn't tell the whole story.  Unless you know why you don't have the whole picture.  Maybe I stopped reading on page 53 because the kids got sick, maybe it took 2 weeks to finish the book because that was when the dog buried the reader in the backyard, maybe I let my 5 year old highlight that passage just to keep him occupied at the doctor's office.
As one comment noted, we have opened Pandora's Box and it's too late to go back now.  If publishers and authors can use the data to create books that reach more people (and sell more copies) that's a good thing.  If they end up stifling creativity to reach the least common denominator of readers that would be sad.