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Proactive Marketing for the New and Experienced Library Director: Going Beyond the Gate Count
Proactive Marketing for the New and Experienced Library Director: Going Beyond the Gate Count
Proactive Marketing for the New and Experienced Library Director: Going Beyond the Gate Count
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Proactive Marketing for the New and Experienced Library Director: Going Beyond the Gate Count

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Academic libraries have continually looked for technological solutions to low circulation statistics, under-usage by students and faculty, and what is perceived as a crisis in relevance, seeing themselves in competition with Google and Wikipedia. Academic libraries, however, are as relevant as they have been historically, as their primary functions within their university missions have not changed, but merely evolved. Going beyond the Gate Count argues that the problem is not relevance, but marketing and articulation. This book offers theoretical reasoning and practical advice to directors on how to better market the function of the library within and beyond the home institution. The aim of this text is to help directors, and ultimately, their librarians and staff get students and faculty back into the library, as a result of better articulation of the library’s importance. The first chapter explores the promotion of academic libraries and their function as educational systems. The next two chapters focus on the importance of the role social media and virtual presence in the academic library, and engaging and encouraging students to use the library through a variety of methods, such as visually oriented special collections. Remaining chapters discuss collaboration and collegiality, formalized reporting and marketing.
  • Offers clear, concise writing, with thoughtful discussions of the problems facing academic libraries
  • Demonstrates comprehensive and thoughtful research that informs theoretical approaches to realistic outcomes that address these problems
  • Provides helpful tables, illustrations, and photographs that evidence the collaborative nature of contemporary academic libraries
  • Provides practical examples from actual experiences that can be adapted by readers
LanguageEnglish
Release dateAug 26, 2014
ISBN9781780634685
Proactive Marketing for the New and Experienced Library Director: Going Beyond the Gate Count
Author

Melissa U.D. Goldsmith

Melissa Goldsmith is currently the Head of Digital Special Collections at Elms College. She has published articles and scholarly reviews on music discography, information literacy, academic library outreach, and musical cultures in Notes, Choice, portal, Naturlaut, Screening the Past, Dead Reckonings, American Music, The Journal of the Society of American Music, and Fontes artis musicae. She has a CLIS, MLIS, and a PhD (in musicology).

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    Proactive Marketing for the New and Experienced Library Director - Melissa U.D. Goldsmith

    Proactive Marketing for New and Experienced Library Directors

    Going beyond the gate count

    First Edition

    Melissa U.D. Goldsmith

    Anthony J. Fonseca

    Table of Contents

    Cover image

    Title page

    Copyright page

    List of figures and tables

    Figures

    Tables

    About the authors

    Acknowledgments

    List of acronyms

    Preface

    Proactive marketing and the current situation

    Ineffective, passive marketing: a failure at academic libraries

    Proactive marketing as active marketing for the academic library

    Using this book: an overview

    About this book’s readership

    1: So you’ve inherited an academic library: promotion through physical space

    Abstract

    New director visions and the academic library as a building

    The learning commons is not the universal answer

    Repurposing furniture and proactive marketing

    Paying attention to the academic library’s large-scale features

    Valuing the library space as physical space

    Beyond fixtures and materials

    You’ve also inherited people

    Breaking down the four-wall isolation

    Conclusions

    2: The academic library as an educational system

    Abstract

    Academic libraries within parent institutions: getting on the same page

    Keeping up with political and ethical situations

    The academic library as a premier learner-centered environment

    What kind of academic library and educational system am I inheriting?

    Accountability and (or versus?) education

    Conclusions

    3: Your virtual presence should not go virtually ignored: the library website

    Abstract

    Relationship to marketing

    Potential for marketing

    Marketing principle 1: make sure it works

    Marketing principle 2: display it like they say it

    Marketing principle 3: link-happy sites make users unhappy

    Role of the director

    Marketing to the academic researcher

    Conclusions

    4: From Facebook to face-to-face: getting your friends into the library

    Abstract

    The digital native conundrum

    More than photos of kittens and food: Facebook as communication

    The advantages

    Our avatars, ourselves

    Conclusions

    5: Virtual spaces and virtual messages: social media as marketing

    Abstract

    Joining the multiplayer set

    The cloud (within the silver lining): ethical concerns

    Chatting and learning: proprietary software and IM as teaching methods

    If no one chats, did the library make a sound?

    Reach out and teach someone: RSS feeds, podcasts, and remote conferencing

    They like to watch: being there for students virtually

    Extra! Extra! Read all about it: RSS feeds

    Promoting the library with fun and games: Second Life

    Conclusions

    6: Engaging students through the arts and humanities: meaningful programming

    Abstract

    Meaningful, accessible, and assessable programming as proactive marketing

    An existing problem: where have all the students gone?

    Forgetting the academic librarian as information specialist

    Answering to personalized and individualized needs

    Academic library programming and the engaged library director

    That initial spark: planning for programming as proactive marketing in the humanities

    Preliminary planning for academic library programming

    Using a liaison model to establish academic library programming

    Academic and institutional purpose and identity

    Materials, funding, and logistics

    Assessment

    Librarians as teachers

    Programming as the academic library’s learner-centered activity

    Conclusions

    7: Getting students back into the library: Beats and Bongos lead them to books

    Abstract

    The Publicity and Public Relations Committee and marketing the academic library

    Marketing problems before PaPR was established

    Successful efforts prior to PaPR

    Further preliminary research for the Beats and Bongos program

    Early planning

    Publicity for the program

    Beats and Bongos in the subsequent years and the Holy Librarians

    The structure of a typical Beats and Bongos program

    Assessment of programming: marketing your academic library for a song

    Conclusions

    8: Librarians in the laboratory: partnered programming in the sciences and social sciences

    Abstract

    Reaching out first

    The embedded librarian idea (modified)

    Critical thinking and programming for sciences and social sciences

    Thank you, Mr Wizard, Bill Nye – science guy, Carl Sagan, and Dick Feynman: making science cool through popular scientists

    Cultivating creative rhizomes: offering the STEM fields some creative stimuli and outlets

    Giving business some culture: academic library programming with a global emphasis

    Engaging marketing students to market the academic library

    Conclusions

    9: Using visually oriented special collections materials to engage the community: documents, figurines, high-definition movie stills, clothing, and photography

    Abstract

    Special collections and identity

    Waking up to having accessible special collections

    The donors’ relation to beautiful things

    Stuff, wonderful stuff: the allure of visually oriented special collections materials

    Proactive marketing, policy-making, and the rapport between librarian and researcher

    Ideas for proactively marketing academic libraries through their visually oriented special collections

    Finding aids and making visually oriented special collections materials accessible

    Conclusions

    10: Using special collections materials and creating learning centers to engage the community: historic instruments, films, tools, and toys

    Abstract

    Some solutions to wasted space and resources in academic libraries

    Access to collections is teaching and can shape the curriculum

    Academic librarians as teachers and bureaucratic red tape

    A world of pure imagination, with a little help from the teacher/librarian

    The librarian’s interdisciplinary perspective and teaching

    Teaching with artifacts and online materials

    Grant administration, proactive marketing, and teaching in librariandirected learning centers: our own experience

    Learning centers and transformative knowledge

    Learning centers and media coverage

    Conclusions

    11: Collegiality and collaboration: marketing the library – and its librarians – to faculty

    Abstract

    Lost in translation, loss of engagement

    Library faculty status is relevant to successful marketing

    We have an image problem: its roots and consequences

    Collaboration, collegiality, consistency

    The librarian is the library

    Collaborators matter: librarians as collaborative scholars

    Being interdisciplinary means getting out

    The role of the director

    Conclusions

    12: Reports and rapport: marketing the library to all stakeholders

    Abstract

    Revealing the man behind the curtain

    Putting it in writing

    Formalizing it

    Crafting a marketable strategic plan

    Being part of recruitment and retention

    WOMMing up to marketing

    Getting librarians involved: walking the walk and talking the talk

    Making service part of marketing: here comes the library!

    Benefiting: you can’t buy that kind of press

    Aspiring to a higher profile lowers marketing hurdles

    Conclusions

    Conclusion

    Index

    Copyright

    Chandos Publishing

    Elsevier Limited

    The Boulevard

    Langford Lane

    Kidlington

    OX5 1GB

    UK

    store.elsevier.com/Chandos-Publishing-/IMP_207/

    Chandos Publishing is an imprint of Elsevier Limited

    Tel: +44 (0) 1865 843000

    Fax: +44 (0) 1865 843010

    store.elsevier.com

    First published in 2014

    ISBN: 978–1-84334–787-3 (print)

    ISBN: 978–1-78063–468-5 (online)

    Chandos Information Professional Series

    Library of Congress Control Number: 2014934495

    © M.U.D. Goldsmith and A.J. Fonseca, 2014

    British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data.

    A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

    All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher. This publication may not be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise disposed of by way of trade in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without the prior consent of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

    The publisher makes no representation, express or implied, with regard to the accuracy of the information contained in this publication and cannot accept any legal responsibility or liability for any errors or omissions.

    The material contained in this publication constitutes general guidelines only and does not represent to be advice on any particular matter. No reader or purchaser should act on the basis of material contained in this publication without first taking professional advice appropriate to their particular circumstances. All screenshots in this publication are the copyright of the website owner(s), unless indicated otherwise.

    Typeset in the UK by Concerto.

    Printed in the UK and USA.

    List of figures and tables

    Figures

    1.1(a)–(d) Comic book project by Alumnae Library, Elms College 11

    1.2 Alumnae Library study carrels 13

    1.3 Alumnae Library foyer 13

    4.1(a)–(f) Fred the skeleton 42

    8.1 Matrix for a SWOT analysis 115

    10.1 Archives and special collections use of a viable listeningroom for junk storage of a politician’s donated materials 136

    10.2 Archives and special collections turning a viable classroominto a third processing area for the sake of claiming territory 136

    10.3 University-wide faculty development workshop set-upwith Orff instruments 146

    10.4 University-wide faculty development workshop with Orffinstruments to show how music can be incorporated intoteaching across the disciplines 146

    10.5 Special needs student from local high school having apiano lesson and using portable whiteboards 147

    10.6 Library staff with special needs students from local highschool during a workshop using music therapy and musiceducation instruments 147

    Tables

    1.1 Possible changes to physical space and corresponding goals 8

    2.1 Potential partnerships between the academic library andother academic entities to create a learner-centeredenvironment, and reasons for the partnerships 24

    3.1 What makes a user-centered design? 30

    3.2 Student preferences for website link labeling 34

    4.1 Librarian roles, Facebook avatars, and reasons forchoosing the avatars 48

    5.1 Use of social media 52

    5.2 Advantages of social media 54

    5.3 Best practices for video 58

    6.1 Identifying collaborators, human impediments, and thetarget participants 75

    6.2 Questions about academic and institutional purposeand identity 79

    6.3 Questions about program materials, funding, and logistics 81

    7.1 An example of Beats and Bongos programming and itsresulting enrichment 96

    7.2 Summary of successful and assessable library marketingoutcomes from Beats and Bongos programming 100

    8.1 Popular science programming ideas and proactivemarketing goals 111

    9.1 Sample ideas for activities using visually oriented materialsthat can be turned into proactive marketing 128

    10.1 Converting impersonal spaces to librarian-directedlearning spaces 137

    10.2 Brief example of a budget justification for an academiclibrary learning center that focuses on historical instruments 148

    11.1 Perceived versus actual expertise of academic librarians 155

    11.2 Marketing challenges for new directors 157

    11.3 Benefits of collaborating with faculty on publications 162

    12.1 Best practices for academic library strategic plans 174

    About the authors

    Melissa U.D. Goldsmith is co-owner and sound recording engineer and producer for MLMC Media, located in Northampton, Massachusetts. At the time of writing this book she was visiting head of Digital Special Collections and Technical Services at Elms College in Chicopee, Massachusetts. She has an MLIS, a certificate in advanced studies in library and information science, a master’s in liberal arts, and a PhD in musicology from Louisiana State University, as well as a master’s of arts in music history and theory from Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. Goldsmith has been a director and grant administrator of a music learning center in the library, head of multimedia, and reference librarian/associate professor as well as an instructor for music courses. Since 2007 she has been reviews editor for The Journal of Film Music. Her articles on librarianship, popular music, and film music have appeared in Choice, portal, Notes: The Quarterly Journal of the Music Library Association, Codex: The Journal of the Louisiana Chapter of the ACRL, Louisiana Libraries, and Naturlaut: Journal of the Chicago Mahlerites. Her book chapters have appeared in Dracula’s Daughters: The Female Vampire on Film and Crossing Traditions: American Popular Music in Local and Global Contexts. As a member of the American Musicological Society, Goldsmith has chaired sessions on electronic theses and dissertations, alternative careers in musicology (including music and special librarianship), student leadership, and music librarianship, served as listserv moderator and member of Communications, Career-Related Issues, and Outreach, and presented papers on Alban Berg’s film music interlude in his opera Lulu, Jim Morrison’s rapport with the underground newspaper The Los Angeles Free Press, William S. Burroughs’s musicality, and Kenneth Rexroth’s jazz poetry experiments.

    Anthony J. (Tony) Fonseca is library director at Elms College, Chicopee, Massachusetts. He has an MLIS from Louisiana State University and a PhD in English from the University of Louisiana-Lafayette. He has worn many hats in libraries, including systems administrator, information literacy coordinator, reference librarian, and head of serials. He has published articles on librarianship, horror literature, and popular culture studies in Aickman Studies, Technical Services Quarterly, Codex: The Journal of the Louisiana Chapter of the ACRL, portal, Collaborative Librarianship, Dissections, and Louisiana Libraries. He has also had chapters published in Dracula’s Daughters: The Female Vampire on Film, Ramsey Campbell: Critical Essays on the Modern Master of Horror, Informed Transitions: Libraries Supporting the High School to College Transition, Crossing Traditions: American Popular Music in Local and Global Contexts, and Icons of Horror and the Supernatural: An Encyclopedia of Our Worst Nightmares. Fonseca is also co-author of the Hooked on Horror genreflecting series, as well as Read On… Horror. His upcoming co-authored book with ABC-CLIO is titled Encyclopedia of the Zombie: The Walking Dead in Popular Culture and Myth. At present he is working on a co-authored book on Richard Matheson for Scarecrow Press.

    Acknowledgments

    Anthony J. Fonseca, Melissa Ursula Dawn Goldsmith

    Our own projects, including writing this book, were made better through learning from our peers in academia. We are grateful to several academic librarians who provided details about their own experiences and proactive marketing strategies. We give our thanks to Michael Matthews, Tracy Michelle Hall, Suzanne Martin, Jeremy Landry, Neil Guilbeau, Debra Cox Rollins, Jessica Hutchings, Karen Niemla, Lance Chance, Sharon Pei, and Jean-Mark Sens. Clearly, the success of our own projects did not take place in the vacuum of the academic library. We also thank the teaching faculty, administrators, staff, business owners, students, and friends who partnered with, trusted, and allowed us to learn from them. These include, among many others, Allen Alexander, Lance Arnold, Katie Baker, Scott Banville, Jessica Barker, Goose Berkowitz-Gosselin, Shannon Butler, Rob Carpenter, Sandi Chauvin, Neha Chitraker, Farren Clark, Jessica Crosier, Albert Davis, Amanda Eymard, Shannon Fabre, Gail Feibel, Michael Fish, Avery Freniere, Patricia Gabilondo, Lynn Gamble, Diane Garvey, Ray Giguette, Debra Gomes, Danny Gorr, Angie Graham, Angela Hammerli, James Haygood, Renetta Hood, Brittany Howard, Dean Howard, Pete Lewis, Marguerite LiBassi, Deborah Moorhead, Cade Ogeron, Brendan Patenaude, Lady Pierson, Elaine Pinkos, Andrew Pioggia, Gaither Pope, Cathleen Richard, Erin Saunders, Abigail Scherer, Tashi Sherpa, Michael Smith, Lori Soule, Holly Stevens, Sister Elizabeth Sullivan (SSJ), Lynette Tamplain, Gitsadah Thongphoon, Gonktahlanee Thongphoon, Stephen Triche, the Family Torres, and Paula Van Goes. Much of this book was written at our new favorite coffee house, The Foundry in Northampton, Massachusetts. We would like to thank the establishment’s owners, Sally and Sonny, for their hospitality and good humor, as well as Chris Ryan and Tina, also regular customers there, for their friendship during our first year in Northampton. It has been our good fortune to complete this book with Chandos Publishing. We thank Harriet Clayton, Fenton Coulthurst, Jonathan Davis, Cherry Ekins, Ed Gibbons, Glyn Jones, and George Knott for their guidance and suggestions. Finally, we express a debt of gratitude to the current administration at Elms College, who have demonstrated the trust in the expertise of their library administration, faculty, and staff that gives us the confidence to write this book, as well as to put into practice its marketing techniques.

    List of acronyms

    ACRL   Association of College and Research Libraries

    ALA   American Library Association

    FTE   full-time equivalent

    FYE   first-year experience

    ILS   integrated library system

    IM   instant messaging

    IT   information technology

    LCP   learner-centered practice

    LIS   library and information science

    LOCKSS   Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe

    MLIS   master’s of library and information science

    MSI   master’s of science in information

    OPAC   Online Public Access Catalog

    PaPR   Publicity and Public Relations Committee

    PDA   patron-driven acquisitions

    SLIS   School of Library and Information Science

    STEM   science, technology, engineering, and mathematics

    SWOT   strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats

    UNO   University of New Orleans

    WOMM   word-of-mouth marketing

    Preface

    In the twenty-first century academic library directors must embrace the evolving nature of their roles, as well as those of their librarians, particularly in student engagement. In addition, they must create formalized plans and policies for the libraries they lead, to reflect and articulate the roles of libraries on campus as they evolve. Ironically (and sadly), even though we are undoubtedly in the information age, and society is undoubtedly an information society, academic libraries – the entity best suited for mastery of information – are seldom the centers of academic experience.

    The current business-oriented, privatized, academically territorial environment in academia has led to a crucial stage for academic libraries: they are forced to struggle for viability at the periphery of the teaching and learning experience, and faced constantly with the question of their relevance, as if their role at the center of the research and scholarship experience was unclear. This challenge of relevancy is aimed not only at the physical building; many academic administrators, teaching faculty, and students, in fact even some SLIS (School of Library and Information Science) programs and their future librarians, have forgotten the concept of academic librarian expertise.

    As ridiculous as it should sound to administrators and teaching faculty, the current be more like Google argument has been allowed to take root and be taken seriously; the current culture of instant information gratification has placed into question the academic library’s very existence. What seems lacking is a deep understanding of the roles of the academic library, the library director, and academic librarians themselves. It is imperative that administrations and academic departments have this understanding before academic libraries can matter: such an understanding would make clear that the academic library is not just a place that houses resources and offers services, that librarians are more than mere staffers who keep resources organized and provide services, and that directors are not building and staff managers only, or figureheads who are infrequently invited into institutional governance.

    Long-ongoing as well as future problems originate from a shallow perception of the library. Strategies to sustain or promote genuine interest, to demonstrate that the academic library is like water to academia, need to have a more profound, long-term impact. An approach that is centered on reacting to problems as they emerge too often creates shortterm solutions only, and sometimes causes more problems later.

    Proactive marketing and the current situation

    Proactive marketing provides some long-term solutions to these ongoing problems, since it not only addresses the current issues but also anticipates future ones. It is no secret that by nature academic librarians have been quiet and disengaged for too long in academia. New corporate attitudes towards academic librarians and librarianship overlook the obvious: that the quality of education at any parent institution relies upon having librarians who can support the institution’s mission as engaged academic faculty, not as cookie-cutter clerks. Cutting costs at all costs and corporate restructuring have victimized academic librarians, as if an anti-intellectual movement has risen from within US institutions of higher education.

    Marketing helps library directors to fight back. It strengthens the quiet and often oppressed voice of the academic library as it targets important listeners effectively. Proactive marketing involves not only marketing, but also anticipatory planning that reflects how the academic library is the heart of academe, now and in the future. Proactive marketing translates the day-to-day existence of the academic library into meaningful value for students, teaching faculty, administrators, and the parent institution’s community.

    This

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