Resource Alert: Super Library Marketing

[Eds Note: It's Friday and I have had a LONG week. For those who do not know what I referring to, click here and here. Today's post is short but useful.]

In the biggest understatement of the year-- library workers are stretched thin. Everywhere and in every way. 

One thing many of us need but do not have time or money for is promotion and marketing. If you are lucky enough to work at one of the very few libraries that happen to have a marketing department, good for you. But most do not.

People ask me all of the time for marketing and promotion tips and help and I ALWAYS point them to the same place-- Super Library Marketing run by Angela Hursh.

Here  is an example of the  advice she can offer from LibLearnX last weekend in a program entitled, At “No More Neutral: How to Use Marketing to Position Your Library in Challenging Times.” From the American Libraries article recapping this program:

"Presenter Angela Hursh, manager of engagement and marketing at NoveList and author of the Super Library Marketing website, discussed how some libraries across the country are strengthening the public’s perception of what they do, rallying their supporters, and responding to book challenges effectively using the tools at their disposal.

“[Challenges] really threaten the existence of your library,” Hursh said. “Not talking about it is not going to prevent a challenge.”

Read the recap but then visit her site. Use her posts, videos, and archive of advice to help promote what you are doing. Add reading her blog or watching her on YouTube to your regular work schedule.

You can't NOT do basic marketing and promotion (no matter how busy you are) and you can very easily be doing it wrong or a way that can even hurt your library. But you have help. Use  it.

Keep the link to Super Library Marketing handy and visit it often.

Resource Alert: Super Library Marketing

Starting next week I am going to have some concrete things you can do to keep providing RA Service  to your patrons even if your library is closed and you are at home, and I am going to start with how you help stock the "RA Pantry." But before I get to that, I think we all need a reminder on how to best market ourselves in general.

My colleague, Angela Hursh, has an excellent Library Marketing website, Super Library Marketing, where she writes extremely useful posts about how to market your library and its services. Her tips and advice are practical and intuitive. She goes out of her way to make things easy to replicate and gets you to think about the larger implications, the WHY behind the marketing choices we make.

Her advice is not just for marketing people. This is advice that every library worker can learn from, and as you know here at RA for All, I feel very strongly that everyone, all library workers, can help with your RA Service, so of course, I also support Angela's marketing for all.

She has been posting most recently about the "new normal" but now is also a great time to look at her archive of information and ideas. You have some time right now to sit back and think about how we market ourselves. You can give a hard look at your strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats [SWOT analysis], assess where you are and what more you can do. And as you identify places to improve, Angela is there to help you. She's been there for a while too, so there is a lot of backlist information that you can access right now, information that is new to you!

Head over to Super Library Marketing and read her posts. Or go over to her YouTube channel  where Angela posts weekly 5 minute, practical, easy to implement marketing ideas.

Click here for Angela's Channel

RA for All Roadshow Visits the ILA Annual Conference for 2 Panel Presentations

Today is the final day of the ILA Annual Conference and I am sponsoring your coffee today!

I am also presenting twice. Below are the details on my panels with links to all of the slides, both mine and my fellow presenters. Access is for anyone, anywhere, at any time.

My first program is from 9am-10am, with two library colleagues and mystery author Tracy Clark. It is entitled, "Flip the Readers' Advisory Script: Think Like a Reader:"

Quit worrying about finding the perfect book for your patrons! Recover the joy of spring books with readers by going back to your own roots as a book lover. Join three librarians and one author who have found fun ways to craft and maintain inviting, diverse, and inclusive collections. Think less like a library worker and more like the joyful reader hiding inside you. When you engage your readers on their terms, you'll not only increase your circulation, but also revitalize you own enthusiasm!

I am presenting for the first 10-12 minutes and I will be interview Ms Clark to conclude the session. This one is going to be a lot of fun because we all get to focus on ourselves as readers!

We have organized a book sale and signing with Ms Clark immediately after the panel too, so stick around and get some awesome Chicago mysteries for your collections before heading to your next session.

Click here for the full details, including all presenters, our room assignment, and the links to everyone's slides and/or handouts.

Then later in the day, from 3-4pm, I will be a part of "Painless Promotion: Encouraging All Staff to Hype the Whole Library:"

Grow beyond the traditional marketing model and embrace a whole library philosophy where promotion is everyone's job. Informing the public of programs, services, and materials that will interest or help them solve a problem is at the core of what we already provide. But why do most library staff think marketing isn’t part of their job? None of these presenters are traditional marketers, but it is a part of how they serve patrons every day. Join them as they share practical tips to engage staff, inform the community, increase return on investment, and create a more positive experience for all.

Click here for the full details, including all presenters, our room assignment, and the links to everyone's slides and/or handouts.

RA for All Roadshow Visits Lincoln [NE] City Libraries

Today I am in Nebraska for the inservice day of Lincoln City Libraries. The entire library staff-- approximately 120 people-- are gathering together for a full day of learning, team work, and reconnecting with themselves as readers.

Below is the full schedule for today, and it is one of my most interactive days. Included is my brand new EDI program and a complete overhaul of what used to be my merchandising talk and is now revamped and retitled-- Painless Promotion. I have the brand new, not even published in LJ yet, book talk and we are going to have 30 minutes exclusively for the group to practice book talking.

Props to Lincoln for allowing all staff, not just front line people, to participate in a full day of RA focused training. They clearly understand that books are their brand and anyone can provide RA Service. I am proud to be here to help them improve, especially because I know they have the correct focus already.

Let's do this, together.

9-10:50 am: RA for All: Readers Advisory belongs in every library, no matter its budget. The implementation of this vital service is the responsibility of every staff member-- from pages to directors, from those behind the scenes to the ones on the front lines. This program will remove the mystery behind providing great RA service. Using her “Ten Rules of Basic RA Service” as a guide, Becky Spratford will use your own love of your favorite books to show you how to help any patron find their next great read. It's not as hard as you think. But more importantly, you will learn why a staff that can harness the power of sharing a great read will become a stronger team and improve service to all patrons.

• Follow's Becky 10 Rules of RA Service

10 Min Break

11am- 12 pm: Booktalking Your Way to the Friendliest Library in Town: Booktalking is at the heart of what we do with patrons each and every day at the public library. Whether we are sharing books informally at the services desk, presenting a prepared list of books, or posting information online, talking about books is something we do each and every day. It is a core service, but it is also hard to teach. Booktalking is more of an art than a skill, but with the right guidance and some practice, it can go a long way toward engaging your patrons and re-energizing your staff. Join experienced Readers’ Advisory Becky Spratford as she shares the secret behind delivering great book talks, giving you tips and tricks you can begin using right away to hone your own skills. Rediscover the power and joy that comes from sharing books with patrons.

• Slide access here

LUNCH 12-1:30

1:30-2pm: Facilitated Booktalking Practice

2-3pm: #OwnVoices for All Readers: Incorporating EDI Values into Readers’ Advisory Service: Providing robust readers’ advisory service that values equity, diversity and inclusion principles is essential to all library service. Join Readers’ Advisory specialist Becky Spratford as she provides the information you need to diversify your suggestions, identify resources, and include more staff input in order to confidently promote and place more #OwnVoices titles into adult patrons’ hands. You’ll come away with an understanding for how easy it to incorporate EDI values into your normal RA practices. All you need is a little nudge in the right direction.

• Slide access here

15 Min Break

3:15-4:15pm: Painless Promotion: Encouraging All Staff To Hype The Whole Library: Grow beyond the traditional marketing model and embrace a whole library philosophy where promotion is everyone's job. Informing the public of programs, services, and materials that will interest or help them solve a problem is at the core of what we already provide. But why do most library staff think marketing isn’t part of their job? Becky Spratford isn’t a traditional marketer, but she will share her proven and practical tips to engage staff, inform the community, increase return on investment, and create a more positive experience for all.

• Slide access here

4:15-4:30pm: Ask Becky Anything: Now is your chance to ask RA expert Becky Spratford anything about how to work with leisure readers. What are your fears, frustrations, and obstacles.

RA for All Virtual Roadshow Returns to Utah State Library

As part of my two webinar series with the Utah State Library, I am presenting my RA Rethink: Merchandising and Upselling program this morning.

This program focuses on the fact that all of the skills we already have and use for our most basic RA Service can also be used to increase staff and patron investment and involvement in your core services.

This program offers many ideas and options that encourage you to rethink what you already know and do, to allow you to go from good to GREAT. I am providing the spark, but you can do it. I have faith in you. Plus, you know what will worth with your patrons better than anyone else.

And, I have even updated it from when I gave this same presentation a week ago.

So if you work in Utah, I'll "see" you soon or catch you in the recording. For the rest of you, here are the slides with live links.

Click here for slide access 

Author Stephen Graham Jones Captures Our Love-Hate of the “Back Cover Copy”

I know I don’t need to tell any of you this, but the "back cover copy” or publisher’s descriptions of books can both help and hurt a book. Yes it’s a great way for us to preview a book and even book talk it to our patrons. But, on the other hand, these descriptions can give away major twists or even inaccurately portray the book that follows inside the covers.

When I had my book club vote on possible titles, I only provided them with publisher copy to make their choices. Of course they could go seek more info on their own, but the “back cover copy” was at least a standard that I wasn’t influencing. Some of these blurbs were so bad and inaccurate that we would discuss them during the book discussion.

The point is, we all have a love-hate relationship with the “back cover copy” as library workers and as readers, but authors have just as complicated a relationship with it too.  Recently, one of my favorite authors, Stephen Graham Jones, took on this issue on his blog here.

As a reader, writer, and professor Jones looks at this issue from a variety of angles. I highly urge all of you to read it because you will learn much about how both authors and readers approach a book based on that description. This post is an excellent way to give yourself some outside the box CE, a new way to look at something we encounter every day and make it work better in our service.

Click here for the full post, but the opening bit is appended below to pique your curiosity:

Strikes me that the reason a lot of novels start out so slowly is that they don’t take into account the version of the catalog copy on their back cover. That copy nearly always gives away the central conceit or trick or surprise of the novel, but the novel, pretending to itself that it exists as pages only, no marketing involved, plays its central whatever close to the vest for eighty or a hundred pages, taking the reader up an agonizingly slow incline to the first of its twists or reveals or big developments. Except the reader, because of that back cover copy that got them to buy the novel in the first place, they’re not reading in a “wait, what’s going to happen here?”-mode but a “when’s what I read about on the back cover going to happen”-mode.

At least I know I do.

Click here to read more. And also do yourself a favor and go read something by Jones himself. His works is both brilliant and fun to read, a mix that is quite unique.

RA for All Roadshow Visits North Central TN for Regional Training

Today I am in the suburbs of Nashville to train staff from three of Tennessee's region library systems.  We are going to train the trainer to spread my version of interactive, patron friendly, conversation based RA service across another region of TN. I am slowly but surely hitting the entire state.

Below you can find the slide and handout access. And please note, all of these programs have been updated.

• RA for All Signature Program: This program follows Becky's 10 Rules of RA Service
• Booktalking: Harnessing the Power of Sharing Books With Readers: slides here
• Demystifying Genre: slides here featuring a diverse collection of authors for your library
• RA Rethink: Merchandising and Upselling Edition: This is about displays and promotion but I use fancy words so your administrators will give these old techniques the credit they deserve.  slides here

There is information here to help everyone out there and the slides are filled with dozens of links to take you further into each topic. Just because you aren't at this presentation doesn't mean this post won't help you to help a reader.

I would especially point all of you to the genre slides so at the very least you can stop telling me you don’t know any “diverse” authors to suggest.

Bring 'Em Back Recording Now Available

Earlier this week there was a free webinar sponsored by NoveList focusing on how to keep your patrons coming back to visit you. The recording is now available for everyone and anyone.

The thesis of this entire blog is that RA service is the prefect way to engage patrons and make the library an integral part of their lives.

But don't just listen to me, click here and watch the recording and listen to others explain what they have done to being people back into their libraries.  This is a useful and inspirational program. Below I have reposted the details.

Where have all the patrons gone? Are you seeing a decline in the number of once-regular visitors stopping in to browse for a book or place a book on hold in your catalog? How can you bring them back?

You’ll hear from two different libraries about how they did just that. The Charlotte-Mecklenberg Library brought 13,000 inactive patrons back to the library in the last year through a large scale marketing endeavor. The Jacksonville Public Library (FL) used an email campaign to re-engage library patrons. Join NoveList and our panel of library marketing professionals as they discuss what their libraries did to bring their patrons back, and talk about new ideas and inspiration you can implement at your library. If you're on Twitter, don't forget to use the hashtag for this event: #back2thelibrary

Battle of the Books...For Adults?

So later today [after the ARRT Crime Fiction Genre Study meeting], I will be attending my school district’s Battle of the Books final.  My son’s team won at his school, and we are all gathering to cheer him on against the other 3 schools’ winners.

For those of you who don’t know what battle of the books is, here is a quick primer, although please note, while many school’s run a program like this, the exact details and procedures may vary.

In our district, it is 4th grade that participates in battle.  The 4 schools’  LRC directors meet with the staff from the three different public libraries that serve our school district. Together they pick a list of 15 books with an effort to have fiction, nonfiction, and a range of reading levels included.  Here is the link to our district’s information including a list of this year’s titles.

At the beginning of the school year the children are given the list and told they must read at least 7 of the books by the end of January.  They are placed into teams of five and spend 1 lunch period a week working together, memorizing authors and title, and practicing their teamwork under the guidance of the LRC director.

At the end of January, the kids participated in 2 rounds of battles at their home schools, answering questions about the 15 books, questions whose answers were always a title and an author. The questions were asked by the public librarians, who came to the school for this.

I could go into a lot more detail about the scoring, and procedures, but this is the gist of it all [again, more details here too].  The point I want to make here is that this program focuses on reading, teamwork, and collaboration between a few different libraries, both school and public-- and it is very fun. The kids had a great time and learned how to handle losing well.  Many of the 4th graders who did not make the final, will travel to the Jr High today to cheer on their schoolmates.

This sounds great Becky, but why do I, the adult librarian care?

Being a part of the battle of the books this year has been a wonderful “outside the box” learning opportunity for me, as well as a librarian mom’s dream come true.  While I was watching the kids compete in the preliminary rounds, I was also watching the parents get into it.  Surprisingly, they were not being all “stage-mommy” and competitive, rather, I saw them thinking about the questions and seeing if they knew the answers as well. [Many of the parents read along with their kids to be a part of it too.]

Then I thought, why can’t we adults have fun doing this too? I know Oak Park Public Library [up the street from me] has staged a very popular Spelling Bee for adults in the past. This is in a similar vein. Of course a battle of the books for adults would be slightly different since there is no school involved, but I have thought this through a little.

Why can’t 3-5 nearby libraries (I have at least 4 within 3 miles of my building) get together and pick a list of adult books?  Or, even better use a list of high interest titles that are not too difficult but still have substance like The Alex Award-- maybe not the newest one, but like 1 or 2 years ago’s list so the books are easier to get through ILL.

Then each library recruits participants and they meet monthly, like a book club, to talk about the books they have been reading.  Depending on how many people each library gets to participate, they make teams and have local battles until 1 team of 4 remains from each library. And then the winners from each individual library meet somewhere to battle each other.

Like the school battles, the librarians from each participating library would need to meet regularly to plan and prepare the quiz bowl style questions that would be used for the actual competitions.

All I see are positive outcomes for everyone in this hypothetical program:

• Adults can get together for a more interactive book club experience. I could see the competitive angle drawing a younger and more male crowd than we usually get.
• Libraries would work more collaboratively together; an activity that would increase all users experiences in the neighboring communities.
• Communities that neighbor each other would come together for a shared program where neighbors can meet neighbors.
• Voting age residents would have a fun and educational library experience which translates into fiscal support in the future.
• It is fresh, modern, and outside the box library activity that is still solidly cemented in our core value as a book and reading based institution.  

I know it will take time and effort to turn this idea into an actual program, but I am going to give it a try. 

Let me know if anyone out there has done something similar with adults at their library.

And at the very least, I hope this post inspires you to think about some book based programming for adults to try at your library. Why should the kids have all the fun?

Are You Ready For Some Football?

People who know me, know that I love football season.  I play fantasy football, am in 4 different pools, am a die-hard NY Giants fan, and because I love football, but live in Chicago, I am a Bears Season Ticket Owner.

I know I am not alone. The NFL is by far the most watched sports league in America.  It is also the biggest money maker, and it generates a lot of gambling revenue.

So, make sure you have some football themed displays ready to go this weekend.

I will admit, it is a bit harder to find great literary options for football books than let’s say, baseball books.  In fact, I happen to prefer books about baseball to books about football [which is weird since I like football more,  but hey, it’s what I like].

That being said, why not take a different angle on the whole football display thing.  Here are a ideas:

• One of my all-time favorite football/literary combo lists was written by the NY Daily news books staff when in 2012 they previewed each team’s chances that year and paired their projected season with a classic work of literature.  It is fantastic! If you are very adventurous, you could make a list for the teams in your local rooting interest area, or even the division your local team is in. This also does not have to be done right now.  You could wait until after the season and then reflect on the year your team had in a suggested reading list format.
• Yesterday, this bookseller posted literary fantasy football team names.  For the record, my team is The Paper Lions, named after this famous book.  It is an excellent read, especially when paired with Stephan Fatsis’ A Few Second of Panic.
• Last week the NY Times ran this article on football books. Great backlist suggestions to dust off and put on display. Also,  the article does a nice job capturing the appeal of these books and explains why someone would enjoy them.
• Here is a link to anything I have written here on the blog about football books, including a post I did last year (on 9/5) with more ideas.

Enjoy the start of the NFL season. And remember, whether or not you like football, your patrons are watching it, so remember their interests when making displays.

Marketing Horror All the Year Through

This post first appeared on RA for All Horror.

As part of Monster Librarian's Monster Movie Month, I wrote a guest post for them about how to use the popularity of horror movies and TV shows to market your horror book collection to a wider range of readers.

Here is the link to my guest post.  It also includes a link to their review of my book.  For you lazy people, the full text is also copied below.

Marketing Horror All the Year Through

By Becky Spratford

One of the biggest questions I get from my fellow librarians is how they can best market their horror offerings throughout the year.  Of course it is easy to get patrons to notice horror in October.  Every other marketer in the world is priming the public for all things scary, so when people walk in the library, they are horror hungry zombies, looking for their next meal.  We have to do little more than place the horror books within their line of sight, and patrons snatch up the books by the handful.

Ah, but the rest of the year we do not have the entirety of mass media working for us; we have to try just a little bit harder. But as daunting a task as it may seem, marketing horror to your patrons during the other 11 months of the year, is not as difficult as you might think. I have 2 easy ways you can seamlessly incorporate horror into your general work marketing books at your library.

First, let’s talk about traditional library displays.  Most of you out there probably put up a big horror display in October.  But why aren’t you doing it other times of the year?  The most common answer is that you think your patrons aren’t thinking about horror outside of October.  But in the last few years this is not necessarily true.

Let’s take the first 6 months of 2012 as an example.  In April, we saw the release of The Cabin in the Woods, a terrific and popular haunted house movie.  In May, there was the Johnny Depp vampire soap opera Dark Shadows and in June, the king of mash-ups, Seth Grahame-Smith helped to bring his bloody, smart, and amusing novel, Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter to the screen.  Each of those movie releases had their own marketing campaigns that resulted in buzz about them among the general public.  For each, a small display could have easily been created.

You begin by putting up a graphic of the movie poster on regular 8 ½  by 11 paper (just do a Google image search for the movie) next to a handful of books.  Then you grab some books that are connected with the movie.  So for Cabin in the Woods, you could pull out some haunted house books, vampire books for Dark Shadows, and some comic horror novels for Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter.  Displays do not need special shelving.  Just put books out anyplace where you have space.  For example, at the Berwyn Public Library, we put these small, current event displays up on our desk, on a top shelf that we keep clear to rotate with impromptu displays, and even on small side tables in our seating areas.

These current event displays not only show your patrons that you understand their interests, but they also make a trip to the library easier for them.  Patrons are daunted by the large number of books on our shelves, so anything we can do to pull out good books for them, makes them less intimidated and more willing to browse.  And, displays linked to current media darlings are a sure fire crowd pleaser.

But how do you choose the books?  Here is where I can help.  In my new book and on its companion website, I have a lot of lists that would help you to identify titles that you could highlight.  I am even fine with you using my annotations, as long as you cite where they are from.  In the book I have entire chapters on haunted houses, vampires, and comic horror that include long annotated lists of popular titles available at most public libraries.  On the website, RA for All: Horror, I use tags on each post.  You just need to choose a tag, like vampires, and all of the relevant posts come up.  There are literally hundreds of options at your fingertips.

Another way you can work horror into your displays throughout the year is to simply include a few horror titles in the mix in your larger, more planned displays.  For example, we have done displays featuring coming-of-age stories at our library.  Since this is such a popular theme in novels, on the display we included books from every genre.  There was literary fiction, science fiction, fantasy, suspense, and horror, just to name a few.  As I argue in my new book, a coming-of-age theme is huge in all horror.  In most horror novels, the protagonist has to overcome his own shortcomings, face his inner demons, and grow up before he can defeat the physical monster in front of him.  So what horror books can be included on a “Coming-of-Age” display? Any you want.

What about a display on gardening? I have lots of “plants of terror” titles to suggest to you in  my book or on the blog, but here are two of my favorites– The Ruins by Scott Smith and The Caretaker of Lorne Field by Dave Zeltersman.

This plan works with just about any theme.  If you just make an effort to incorporate horror into all of your displays, I am sure you will find a tale of terror to fit most displays.  The moral here is to consciously mix all genres into your displays.  You will have more fun, and you will make a wider range of patrons happier.

My second tip for marketing horror all year also plays off of the media.  I mentioned a marketing strategy for one-time movie releases, but what about the excitement we are seeing for popular horror television series throughout the year?  Again, let’s stick with just the first 6 months of 2012 and talk about two of the most popular series on television, period– AMC’s The Walking Dead and HBO’s True Blood (okay, technically True Blood is paranormal, not pure horror, but trust me, I will address that in a moment).

The Walking Dead ran on TV in the winter and spring, while True Blood is currently running this summer.  For each series I took a different marketing approach at the library.  For The Walking Dead, I focused on a web campaign of all things zombie.  On my blog, I ran many Walking Dead inspired posts and worked hard to incorporate book suggestions in these posts.  I did this throughout the run of the show, culminating with a display of zombie books in the library during the week leading up to the finale.

True Blood was a little more difficult, since its fans are mostly those who like paranormal stories.  In paranormal, the main thrust of the story is NOT to invoke fear, as it is in horror.  The scares come, but they are not the overall point of the work.  As a result, some horror fans do not like paranormal and vice versa.  But, that doesn’t mean NO horror fans like True Blood.  To address the wide range of appeal in the TV series and the book series, a few years ago, I created this list of Sookie Stackhouse read alikes broken up by appeal.  I considered all of the reasons you may like the series and included plenty of horror options on the list.  This list is available online and in the library and is one of most popular lists.

I hope I have inspired you to consider marketing horror throughout the year.  The popularity of horror TV series and movies today proves horror’s staying power.  And if huge production companies think it is okay to push horror during the other 11 months of the year, why shouldn’t you?  We have way less to lose than they do.

And don’t be scared of helping your horror patrons.  They are not monsters, they just like to read about them.

RA and Marketing

How many of you out there working at a service desk at your public library took a marketing class?  I am guess none-2 is the range here. But, how many of you are finding that marketing yourself and your fabulous services has begun to suck up more and more of your time?  Here I am guess most of you would answer in the affirmative.

I have never had professional marketing training, but over the years I have made an effort to learn more about marketing and how to use it to promote library services and programs.  One way I have stayed up to date is by teaching 1/2 of 1 class in my RA course on Marketing each semester.  It is not much, but it forces me to keep up.

Over my 12 years in public libraries as a librarian, library educator, and library trustee, I have also seen more and more libraries adding full time non-library marketing people to add to their staffs.  Many of them are then sent to library school after being hired (I have taught more than a handful of these people).  We need the marketing expertise so badly now, we are willing to sacrifice the library knowledge in the short term.

The point here...marketing is becoming an essential part of our jobs, but we are all hunting and pecking for the skills we need to fill this huge chasm between what we are trained to do and what we are actually being asked to do.

Thankfully, I have found a new resource to help bridge that chasm: 658.8 Practical Marketing for Public Libraries.  Run by Susan Brown, the marketing director at the Lawrence Public Library in Lawrence, KS, 658.8 is a forum for her to  share her passion about readers’ services, social media, and marketing and merchandising for public libraries.  For more on Ms. Brown, click here.

She regularly posts useful advice and resources which can be quickly understood and implemented by any librarian.

What I like about 658.8 is how she is able to look to the outside world for marketing inspiration, but is constantly making the library specific connections for you.  I barely have enough time to help patrons and order new fiction some days.  I need to be thinking outside the box for marketing, but honestly, it falls by the wayside to more pressing demands.  But by subscribing to 658.8's feed, I don't have to feel bad anymore.  I am letting Ms. Brown come up with the ideas and advice, and I can apply it to my specific community.  Thank you 658.8.

Anyone working at a public library, but especially those in RA, should check out 658.8.

Playing Hooky, But Learning About Marketing Ourselves

Well, almost playing hooky, since I will still get his post in under the wire of "today."  Today was a rare day where I could ignore the world.  My kids' school district lets them out early every Wednesday for staff training, so they only get 1 in-service day a year;.  It was today.  Since I work on most of their school holidays (like yesterday), this is our one day for the three of us to do something just for fun.  Thankfully they are still young enough to be excited to spend the day with me.

Stay with me here, this has an RA connection coming.

Today we spent the entire day at The Field Museum in Chicago.  It was quiet, and we had no time frame, no extra curriculars for them, and no meetings for me.  It was a rare "day off."

I had put my work brain on hold and was utterly enjoying my day with the kids, and then, on our way out, we saw a small, hidden gem of an exhibit which made me rethink how we librarians market the work we do to our patrons.  Entitled, "The Romance of Ants," this one room exhibit uses a graphic novel style to tell the story of the life and research of Dr. Moreau, a scientist at the Field.  It is both an intimate look at how a young girl with an interest in ants overcomes stereotypes to pursue her passion, and a look at some of the newest research about ants.

I realize that I might be losing many of you right now, but continue to bear with me.  This exhibit was educational (both in what we learned about ants and as a role model for my 8 year old daughter who is currently dreaming of becoming a chemist), but it was also an advertisement for what the Field does.  Much of the exhibit gives concrete examples of what the Field provides to its visitors and to the community at large.

Why can't libraries do this too?  Maybe this should be an example to libraries for our next step in marketing our services, especially in these trying economic times where tax payers are demanding the most for their money.

So how could the library use displays to both promote ourselves and educate and entertain while doing it?  I have to think about this some more, but off the top of my head, what about a display that shows how we make displays?  People don't realize how much work goes into our fiction displays.  Take it further.  Like the Field, why can't the library use the personal experiences of one employee to show how the work of the library's employees is at the heart of the library's overall services.  I envision a display or exhibit that shows the steps on how a book goes from being published to put on the libraries shelves.  It could include pictures of the steps it takes from being read in a review, to being ordered, processed, cataloged, put on the shelf, and then written up for a display, with information about the staff members involved in the process, and how their input is invaluable.

These are all just some of the ideas that ran through my head as we drove home in rush hour traffic.  I am not sold on any of these ideas, but the point here is that the museum made a conscious effort to market their staff in this exhibit.  It made me appreciate the behind the scenes work that goes into a world class museum; it made me proud to support this museum with my membership; and it made me wonder why a library could not do the same.

We are also a cultural institution, and we rely almost solely on public funds.  Although our patrons appreciate the services we provide for them with their nominal tax dollars, we need to promote the role our staff plays in making these services possible.  Without us, they have no books, no programs, no movies, etc...

So the moral is, let's start hyping ourselves more.  Oh, that and even when I think I am taking a day off, I am not.  Please let me know what you think, especially if you are already doing something like this already.

Best Books of 2010: Weekly Update

The list of the best books lists is now growing at light speed.  Again, go on over to Largehearted Boy's aggregated list of best lists to see any changes or updates.

However, I specifically wanted to point your attention to this list in Library Journal.  It takes the authors of their top ten books of the year and asks them what they are working on next.  Click through to see for yourself.

I think this is a novel way to market your best list and make it standout.  At this time of year, if you are not THE first list, your list gets lost in the shuffle.  Kudos to Library Journal on this great marketing tool, that also happens to be very useful.

Also, thanks to Cindy Orr and her RA Rundown for pointing me to the article.

Marketing Tips for All Public Libraries

I have used this blog as a platform for many RA related issues and effectively marketing your library and its services to leisure readers is one of my favorite of those issues. Although I love to push libraries into doing more marketing, I myself am not a marketing expert.

No problem though. As a librarian, I am not expected to be an expert on every issue; I am simply expected to know where to find the experts. And so, I have.

First, here is a great interview Sarah Long of the North Suburban Library System did with Denise Raleigh, Director of Marketing, Development, and Communications at Gail Borden Public Library District, about her many marketing successes. The library has been recognized nationally for their marketing efforts. Denise offers some marketing tips, such as taking well-planned risks, planning for big photo opportunities, and thinking big.

Second, here is a detailed report done by Envirosell, a leading research and consulting agency for commercial environments that integrates the analysis of layout, merchandising, and operations, when they conducted a study at four libraries in my local Metropolitan Library System (IL).  Each partner library was selected for its diversity of size and user population.  Results from the study are available here.

My favorite part of Envirosell's report is toward the end where they give best practices based on how much money you have to spend. They even have marketing advice for those with no money to spend. Sage advice for these tough fiscal times.

Patron Who Wanted "Captivating Books"

This week at the BPL RA desk I got exactly the patron I warn my students about each and every semester, and it is exciting and terrifying (at the same time), even for a veteran like me. But I have to admit, I love the challenge.

Here is the set up. A late-30s woman walks into the library and asks for an "easy read." More probing from me leads to the revelation that she is going on a 6 hour plane ride and will then spend 10 days on the beach and wants a book that will "captivate her."

Okay, first warning bell goes off in my head. What I find captivating may be be what she finds captivating. I asked more questions and found she wanted new or "hot" books. She likes to stay "ahead of the curve," or at least even with it.

She seemed to want books that were popular with book discussion groups, but not difficult or overly depressing, although sad was okay. I started throwing out titles to see if she had read and liked them. For example, she has read and liked The Lovely Bones, books by Jodi Picoult, and The Secret Life of Bees. So she wants substance, but not plodding pace; she wants a page-turner with some substance behind it. Also, I checked if she minded a mystery or suspense element and she was fine with that too.

I also found out (again by asking) that she likes to have read books that are going to be made into movies. This goes with her wanting to be ahead of the curve issue.

This discovery lead to the first book I put in her hands, Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. This book is provocative, moves steadily, has a bit of suspense, and will be a movie in 2010. My book discussion group read this book and I wrote about it here. As I handed her Never Let Me Go I began by talking up the movie (due 2010) and how she will be ahead of the curve.

I then thought of authors who are popular now and asked her if humor was okay. She said yes. I gave her the first Lisa Lutz mystery The Spellman Files (which I read here) and played up how popular she has become since this breakout debut. I told her she should read this first and then she could come back and read the new one. She loved being in on a hot new author from her beginnings.

I ended by giving her an oldie but goodie by an always popular author: The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver. This is a short and captivating coming of age story. I talked it up by focusing on Kingsolver's popularity, my own experience leading a discussion on this title, and this book's timeless charm. She knew of Kingsolver and had never read her, so for her this qualified as "hot."

Notice none of these books are particularly"hot" or new in and of themselves. In fact, they are just some of our popular back list titles. They would not be featured on display at your local book store right now. That is not the point. RA service is about selling the right book to the patron for their particular reading need at that moment.

You need to think of a book or author and then find a way to tell the potential reader the highlights as it pertains to their reading tastes or needs. Depending on who you are talking to, you will sell the book differently. For example, I played down the SF angle on Never Let Me Go, but mentioned it, saying it was dystopian, not aliens, just so she was prepared. I also did not give away the huge twist but did let her know there was a big secret about the school which the characters attend (to find out click here).

Also, it is important to give your patrons at least 3 choices. She took all three (2 pbs and one medium sized hard cover) and can always switch if she is no longer captivated by any. There is nothing worse than being stuck on vacation with nothing to read! (An exaggeration, I know)

Not a single one of these books was on the new shelf, but they were all "hot" titles as I sold them. It is all about perception. She got 3 great books, tailored to her needs, all by stopping by the RA desk before going on vacation. And it didn't cost her a cent.

You Can Judge a Book By Its Cover

Each year, the Book Design Review posts its list of the best book covers of the year. Here is the link to further information on the winners.

How does this help with your RA service though? You'd be surprised how much a cover tells you about the text to be found within its pages. My colleague, Joyce Saricks has argued this point to me many times. The most important thing to keep in mind as you help readers is that the cover tells the reader what the publisher (not necessarily the author) wants us to know about the book. The book cover is a marketing tool, and as Readers' Advisors we should "read" book covers to try to decipher the appeal factors which the cover is trying to convey.

For example, books which feature the author's name more prominently than the title, are being sold on the popularity of said author's name, not necessarily on the content. Also, more complicated and abstract covers, tend to be put on more complicated and abstract books. There are also cover trends. A few years ago, all chick-lit books featured a pastel color theme with some kind of shoes on the cover; so finding readalikes was as easy as looking at the cover.

These are just a few examples, but if you want to test the theory, grab a couple of your favorite books and see how the cover reflects the story held within. What assumptions can be made about the book's context from the cover? I think you will be surprised at how much of the book you CAN judge by its cover.

Also, don't forget to put as many books as you can "face out" on your shelves to have the marketing power of the book cover work for your patrons.

Boston Public Library TV ads

The Boston Public Library has recently posted their wonderful new ad campaign. They worked with an ad agency (who donated their services) to create print, radio and television ads with the tag line of "What Do You Want to Know?". Click here to access examples.

This is a highly innovative campaign, and I think much of what this campaign says about the Boston Public Library specifically, can be applied to just about every public library in the country. Although, I do wish they'd talk about finding you a good book to read.

Thanks to my student Joe, who passed these links on.