MARKETING LIBRARIES: A SURVlVAL COURSE?
| Pages | 4-8 |
| Published date | 01 January 1993 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/EUM0000000000843 |
| Date | 01 January 1993 |
| Author | Carole Baldock |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science |
LIBRARY MANAGEMENT
Marketing Libraries:
A Survival Course?
Carole
Baldock
Libraries and marketing, at first glance, make
the oddest of couples, as different as
calligraphy and mousetrap cheddar. It is
hardly surprising, then, that 41 per cent of
the people participating in the 1990 Which?
survey on public libraries felt that libraries
were not very good, or not at all good, at
marketing their services[1]. After all, nearly
two decades earlier, Betty Rice had warned
that "public relations are a way of life, yet to
many librarians, the very words 'public
relations' have unpleasant commercial
overtones"
[2].
Even now, there is
"ambivalence felt in libraries about
management"
[3],
perhaps because "managing
is...a complex and demanding set of skills
and competences...distinct from
many...other [library] skills and
competences, and as such, has to be
positively acquired and carefully applied"[3].
Marketing is one of the most important
aspects of management: "services have to be
consumer oriented to ensure survival" [4]
because "public libraries [are]...dependent
upon public goodwill for their very
existence"
[2].
Sherman defines public
relations as "the art and technique of
relating to the public"
[5],
explaining that "the
power of public relations has become
mythical...this power encompasses not only
people and things, but ideas as well".
"Information...has become a profitable
commodity"[6]; marketing ensures that it will
continue to be so.
Combining the images of marketing and
libraries seems to create a nightmare vision
of the strangest of bedfellows, a literal
culture clash. How then to define marketing,
and in terms which appeal to the librarian?
Quite simply: by focusing on the needs of
the buyer, it lives up to that most basic rule
of economics: supplying what is demanded.
As Birks points out, "Consumer needs and
preferences guide the subject matter, form,
accessibility, means of approach and
frequency of these services"[7]. Janet
Schmidt states that it is "a continuous
process which enables an organization to
meet the current needs of the clients and to
assess and create new services to meet their
future needs as well"[8].
However, "we need perhaps to question
some of the conventional marketing
wisdoms"[1],
since what is required for
library services is "a balanced mix of
available marketing techniques"
[6];
Seddon
suggests that "libraries' principles of serving
100 per cent of the population 100 per cent
of the time...lead to complete failure since
it is impossible to supply products and
services that will suit the whole market at the
standard required"[6]. Usherwood suggests
that the traditional Feature, Advantages,
Benefits (FAB) selling approach needs an
extra E for Education in order to work for
information services and, one suspects, to
make it more acceptable to librarians per
se[1].
Nevertheless, "if the basic product is a
bad product, no amount of fancy packaging
can disguise the shoddy contents"
[2].
Usherwood stresses that "the interaction
between staff and clients is a major factor in
user satisfaction"[1]. First impressions are
vital, for the client is thus influenced, for
good or ill, before even experiencing the
service: as Brophy states, "it will be many
years before systems become...accessed
casually by the untrained user — most...are
still at...the 'user-lethal' stage"[9]. This wry
comment comes from an article whose title,
"The long arm of the librarian", is inspired
by writer Terry Pratchett's fantasy Disc-world
series,
the librarian in question being the
ultimate in "user-useless" — an orang-utan.
Library Management, Vol 14 No 1, 1993, pp. 4-8,
© MCB University Press, 0143-5124
4
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