marketing and communications librarians: an exploration of roles and responsibilities
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Karen Okamoto John Jay College
City University of New York [email protected]
Mark Aaron PolgerCollege of Staten Island City University of New York [email protected]
Marketing and Communications Librarians: An Exploration of Roles and Responsibilities
AgendaOur Study
Why we did this study
Defining Key Terms
Our institutions
Literature Review
Practical Examples of Library Marketing and Communications
Our Questionnaire
Results and Comments from Respondents
Limitations and Concluding Thoughts
What is our study about?
Our study explores the roles of librarians whose major responsibilities includes:
-Marketing-Communications-Outreach-Public Relations
Why this study?
Given recent technological developments and trends (popularity of mobile devices, social networking tools, etc.), we wanted to explore how marketing librarians figure in these times.
• How long have these positions existed?• Why were they created?• What do they do?• What are some of the challenges?
DefinitionsMarketing: Through creative and innovative strategies, marketing involves matching the user'sneeds with your resources and services. 4 P's
Public Relations: Various strategies implemented to ensure positive relations with your stakeholders.
Communications: verbal or written strategies used to disseminate information, and sometimes persuade your users.
Liaison: a contact person who bridges the "communication gap" between various departments within an organization.
Outreach: Strategies of "reaching out" into the community to develop relationships with your users
Our institutions
College of Staten Island/ CUNYo 13,000 students across 200 acre campuso Comprehensive Senior College specializing in Nursing,
Education, Social Work, and Business Administration.o Offers programs at the Bachelor, Master, and Doctorate
level.o 1 main library with 15 librarians, 10 part time librarians and
85 library staff.
John Jay College of Criminal Justice / CUNY• senior college • 14, 000 students• criminal justice focus• 14 full-time librarians, 10 part-time librarians• more than 300,000 books, periodicals, and microforms• over 100 databases• over 36,000 electronic journals
Our institutions
Literature Review
Why market?• Identify user & non-user needs• Financial and political support• Present library services and products as indispensible
Marshall, N.J. 2001. Public relations in academic libraries: A descriptive analysis. The Journal of Academic Librarianship 27(2): 116-21.
Ojiambo, J.B. 1994. Application of marketing principles and techniques to libraries and information centres. Library Review 43(2):46-51.
But we're already marketing!• Marketing is part of the job (others disagree - marketing is a
dirty word!)• We're marketing all the time
Baird, C. 2008. Outing a Marketing and Communications Librarian. Access: The Official Publication of the Ontario Library Association: 20-21
Literature Review
Formalizing it• focuses marketing efforts• makes goals and objectives clear• decide who is responsible
Taylor, S. 2002. Public relations and the academic library. Public Services Quarterly 1:1-4
Who should be responsible?• marketing team• marketing team lead by a marketing librarian• marketing librarian/marketing specialist• participation of all library staff
Kumbar, R.D. 2004. The importance of marketing and total quality management in libraries. Electronic Journal of Academic and Special Librarianship. Vilelle, L. 2006. The best is yet to come. Technical Services Quarterly 24(2): 9-26.
Practical Examples of Library Marketing and Communications
• Library Web Sites• Library Polls, Contests and Questionnaire• Library Newsletters• Mass email announcements• Mousepads, staplers, and pens• Brochures and posters• YouTube Videos• Facebook Fan Pages and
Twitter Feeds• Digital Signage• Blogs and Podcasts• New Faculty Welcome Letter, workshops• Roving reference • Open house and orientations• High school student outreach• Author talks and events
Our Questionnaire
Distributed anonymous short questionnaire asking librarians the nature of their roles
as marketing and communications librarians.Garnered 74 respondents who identify as marketing and
communications librarians.
-Was their position newly created?-Do they hold an ALA-accredited MLIS degree?-Do they have a marketing background?-Asked about the % of time devoted to marketing and
communications -Asked if they worked with the institution's marketing and
communications department-Asked about their obstacles on the job
Results of Our Questionnaire
Results of Our Questionnaire
Results of Our Questionnaire
Results of Our Questionnaire
Results of Our Questionnaire
Results of Our Questionnaire
Selected Comments from Respondents
We have slowly been increasing our outreach as the demands for it have increased over the past decade. More students and faculty are using the library virtually, making it more necessary to have strong outreach programming to reach our audiences. I am changing the focus of my job from running a center and doing outreach (on the side) to focusing on outreach and overseeing the center as a much smaller part of my job.
I take marketing very seriously because you have to reach out to people where THEY are, not sit and wait for them to come to you. It is also important to keep reaching out to the regulars to keep everyone informed of all the wonderful things you have to offer.
Selected Comments from Respondents
[T]he library set up a committee of librarians from different departments. Outreach was added to each job description. It is the smallest part of my job description.
My position was created in 2004[...] Because of the large amount of turnover, we are turning outreach duties over to a committee of librarians so that this position can be more than a entry level spot.
I often use the help of event-specific committees and the expertise of graphic designers.
Selected Comments from Respondents
I provide outreach mainly to faculty to promote instruction. I attend faculty meetings to speak about our programs [...] We've increased instruction by over 50% since just a couple of years ago.
We're forced to do our own PR/Marketing because of a lack of overall library system support, and university support. We have a marketing coordinator, and plans are in the works to create an events coordinator. We utilize two student interns for graphic design work - they receive both pay and course credit for their work with us.
Selected Comments from Respondents
We have done a lot of good marketing raising awareness of our brand. We have the only logo outside of the organization logo. We have won a National award for one of our marketing events called Tuesday Morning Coffee @ the Library.
I am a Distance and Off Campus Services Librarian. Marketing is an extremely important aspect of creating a vibe, a demand for what we do. It is not tied to a title as "Marketing Librarian". It is intrinsic to the job I do everyday
Results of Our Questionnaire
• 84.9% do not have a marketing background (debates on its importance)
Time spent on marketing
Factors that lead to the creation of the position
• Need for a contact person (32.9%)• Need for a marketing plan (31.5%)• Library under-utilized (21.9%)• Trend to hired a marketing librarian (8.2%)• Self-initiated• Reach target group, promotion, formalize efforts,
evolved, solo librarians, part of existing duties.
• time• money• lack of institutional support• little staff buy-in• resistance to change• bureaucratic barriers
Limitations of our Study-Our focus was academic libraries not public or special libraries-Not a representative sample-Some librarians who market do not identify as marketing librarians-Some marketing and outreach professionals who do not hold MLIS degrees may have been missed-% of marketing activity could be different at different times of
the year-Some library directors are responsible for marketing and they
may not have responded to the questionnaire
Conclusion
• signifies an interest in marketing• challenges exist• specialized librarian positions e.g. instructional design, first
year experience, user experience, web services
Future studies• in-depth interviews with marketing librarians• analysis of marketing plans
