creating your library brand: communicating your relevance and value to your patrons
TRANSCRIPT
Book Reviewsedited by Joan Cheverie
Creating Your Library Brand: CommunicatingYour Relevance and Value to Your PatronBy Elisabeth Doucett
Reviewed by Andrea Malone. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Information Literacy Programs in the DigitalAge: Educating College and UniversityStudents OnlineCompiled by Alice Daugherty and Michael F. Russo
Reviewed by Margot Note . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
The Medical Library Association Guide toHealth LiteracyEdited by Marge Kars, Lynda M. Baker,and Feleta L. Wilson
Reviewed by Marcus M. Banks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Copyright Policies: Clip Note #39Compiled by Patricia Keoghand Rachel Crowley
Reviewed by Steve McKinzie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
Business Cases for Info Pros: Here’s Why,Here’s HowBy Ulla de Stricker
Reviewed by Michele Glover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
User-Centred Library Websites: UsabilityEvaluation MethodsBy Carole A. George
Reviewed by Lee Andrew Hilyer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Guided Inquiry: Learning in the 21st CenturyBy Carol C. Kuhlthau, Leslie K. Maniotes,and Ann K. Caspari
Reviewed by Justine Alsop-Cotton . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
The Library Security and Safety Guide to Prevention,Planning, and Response
By Miriam B. KahnReviewed by Delmus E. Williams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
98 The Journal of Academic Librarianship, Volume 35, Number 1, pages 98–103
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MetadataBy Marcia Lei Zeng and Jian Qin
Reviewed by Laura Nauta . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Creating Your Library Brand: Communicating Your
Relevance and Value to Your Patrons, by ElisabethDoucett. Chicago: American Library Association. 2008124p. $45.00. ISBN 978-0-8389-0962-1.As libraries continue to competewith the Internet andbookstores to provide information to their users, itbecomes critical to leave a lasting and positive impres-sion on patrons so they will remember that librariesshould be their first point of contact, for they still existprimarily to assist users in obtaining their desiredinformation needs. How do libraries go about marketingthemselves to accomplish this goal? Branding. In Creat-ing Your Library Brand, Elisabeth Doucett uses herextensive background and education in business andmarketing to enlighten library professionals about thesignificance of developing a library brand and how tomarket the brand so that an individual institution standsout among their virtual and retail-oriented competition
The book begins with an explanation of how it is to beused. The text can be read completely through or readerscan peruse individual chapters as needed depending ontheir existing place in the brand development processThe book continues with definitions of marketing andbranding and how these business concepts are beneficiaand relatable to library institutions. Doucett continueswith an explanation ofwhy branding is essential andwhoexactly should be involved in the development of thebrand. She refers to the sample project plan presentedearlier in the “How to Use This Book” section whichoutlines the specific duties of individual library employeefrom paraprofessional to administration. Included in thework are chapter topics such as defining the ideal brandworking with outside help, evaluating the brand, andmaintaining the brand. The book ends with appendicesthat contain case studies of branding projects from threepublic libraries and a list of suggested terms that can beused to describe your library followed by a glossary ofmostly business terms thatwill help the reader gainmoreunderstanding of the ideas presented in the text.
Written primarily for public library professionalsCreating Your Library Brand, leads readers through thebranding process, making it more feasible. Both librariesjust starting out in developing their brand and thoselibraries in the midst of generating one will benefit fromthe ideas presented in this work. Doucett writes the bookas a manual complete with tips, suggestions, FAQs, andend of chapter activities to ensure that readers trulyunderstand the concepts presented in the text and canapply them to their respective marketing circum-stances.—Andrea Malone, Assistant Librarian, Univer-sity of Houston, M. D. Anderson Library, 114 UniversityLibraries, Houston, Texas 77204 <[email protected]>.
doi:10.1016/j.acalib.2008.10.006