COMPETENCY D: MARKETING & OUTREACH

“And receive as our gift, our gift to you,
They come in all colors; one size fits all,”

Step Right Up, Tom Waits

Introduction
Marketing, outreach, and library management are important principles of library and information science. Often overlooked as being a secondary thought, or perhaps someone else’s problem (social media manager, anyone)? Librarians must ensure that materials and services are marketed, advertised, and distributed accordingly. “Once upon a time, many years ago, when the idea of marketing was mentioned in a library setting, most of those in hearing range recoiled in horror,” Romaniuk (2018, p. 119) states. This attitude persists today, and it’s easy to imagine that advertising one’s library is the bane of almost every librarian’s existence. “Research about community engagement at libraries shows a clear trend: while most libraries offer services and programming that their patrons find valuable and worthwhile, it is a lack of effective outreach and marketing that keeps attendance down,” states Wilk, et al. (2019).

Giveaways, Swag, and Social Media
Giveaways of free swag at a makerspace workshop event or creating an engaging post on social media can go a long way. Marketing and spreading awareness about a library’s products and services are perhaps some of the most important aspects of operating a library. There are many creative ways to market and advertise a library, including library programming and special community-based events. Alternative programming to keep young and old patrons engaged is vital to the beating heart of any library. Social media is also a vitally important tool. Stephens (2022) states his opinion on how to cultivate engagement on social media, particularly TikTok: “…I think the way to get started with TikTok is to download the app, start following libraries, librarians, writers, and other people in the library and book space, then use their content to copy or for inspiration. In fact, we often find that videos that get the most views are the ones where we hop on a trend or interact with other accounts. Once I recognized the power of trends, I made a duet video (or a video that appears next to the original) with the Nicholls State University main account. On their account they posted a video of a student worker doing the Renegade dance, which is a fairly complicated dance. I (poorly) learned the dance, went into the back of the library and filmed it. The juxtaposition of the two dances was ridiculous, and the video was viewed several hundred times on all of our social media platforms.” These sorts of performances can be an affordable way to gain attention without needing much equipment or time.

Affordability and Budgets
Speaking of affordable, it is important to keep a budget and keep track of expenditures. Without a strategic marketing plan and a budget breakdown in place, outreach and engagement can be very difficult indeed. Still, someone has to figure out how to pay for the services rendered, whether it comes out of the city budget, fundraising goals, grant proposals, or something else. While this may not be something that is every librarian’s favorite task, in the age of social media and modern technology, surely these formerly tedious concepts can be streamlined. Fundraising software and accounting programs must do some measure of good, along with the increased ability to interact with other librarians nationwide and worldwide.

Conclusion
Although money, marketing, advertising, and promotional materials may not be every librarian’s cup of tea, these activities are vitally important to the library system and bring a steady stream of new patrons who will tell their friends what a wonderful local library that they have in their community, and what a lovely and skilled librarian is running it.

Artifacts and Evidence
Artifact 1
Assignment:

Course: INFO 204 Information Professions
Description:
This project is a memo describing the theoretical library response of the music library for a private recording label known as RhythmInc. In this assignment, I had to justify why we should keep the library when the CEO had no idea what it was for. I patiently explained as though I were the head librarian of this special library what the pros and cons of keeping the library would be, and successfully justified continuing its existence. This project was included in my regular portfolio at egglestonrae.com. I am very proud of this particular piece of evidence, and this artifact is probably some of my best work. This artifact goes on to say that although the library in question is not well-digitized, and therefore is lesser known because of its analog nature, with some tender loving care, it could become a very robust digitally updated collection. Overall, I made a strong argument for the preservation of this corporate library and was extremely well-versed in its current and future marketing tactics.

Artifact 2
Assignment:

Course: INFO 210 Reference and Information Services
Description: 
This discussion gives an overview of my opinion of how libraries should be managed. Essentially, I describe how they should be run in much the same way as any other business, because at the end of the day, they are also a business of sorts, even if it is a public or academic library and not a special library or corporate one. My rationale is that they still have a budget like any other “business” and that money makes the world go around. Unfortunately, as much as we would like to give away every service for free, it’s not feasible in our capitalist society, particularly in the United States. My ideal situation for any library environment would be that they are sufficiently funded so no librarian should ever have to ask for or need additional money. My explanation goes on to say that music and multimedia libraries especially for youth and teen services, are vital to their development and well-being. Most youth services could stand to be more robust, whether academic, school, public, or corporate libraries.

Artifact 3
Assignment:

Course: INFO 204 Library Professions
Description:
This is an overview of my decisions for the Mountaintop (Public) Library budget, which essentially outlines the difficult decision of resolving the budget cuts that this library faced by cutting a low-ranking librarian down to part-time work and rejecting additional computer budget(s). One of my classmates decided fundraising was a better option to resolve this library budget. I wish I had considered this in making my budget as I now believe that cutting the librarian’s hours was a poor decision. I assumed that paying an employee on fundraising alone would be severely difficult, and perhaps that is still the case. Though there are many ways to resolve budget cuts, they will remain difficult and depressing decisions. This community also has many home-schooled students. I believe this to be a parental decision and that parents should provide sufficient home technology, as it is not the local public library’s job to provide computer equipment for students who have opted to stay home. While this is a somewhat shrewd decision, I still believe that I made the correct decision overall.

References
Romaniuk, M. (2018). Marketing library services. In K. Haycock & B. E. Sheldon (Eds.), The portable MLIS: Insights from the experts (2nd ed., p. 119). Libraries Unlimited.

Stephens, R. (2022). Getting started with TikTok for library marketing. Public Services Quarterly, 18(1), 59–64. https://doi.org/10.1080/15228959.2021.2008286

Wilk, M., Garcia, G., Frenkel, M., & Anderberg, L. (2019). The power of communication: Increasing patron engagement through outreach and assessment. Science & Technology Libraries, 38(4), 398–419. https://doi.org/10.1080/0194262X.2019.1659210