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Proactive Marketing for the New and Experienced Library Director
Going Beyond the Gate Count
1st Edition - August 25, 2014
Authors: Melissa U.D. Goldsmith, Anthony J. Fonseca
Language: English
Paperback ISBN:9781843347873
9 7 8 - 1 - 8 4 3 3 4 - 7 8 7 - 3
eBook ISBN:9781780634685
9 7 8 - 1 - 7 8 0 6 3 - 4 6 8 - 5
Academic libraries have continually looked for technological solutions to low circulation statistics, under-usage by students and faculty, and what is perceived as a crisis in…Read more
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Academic libraries have continually looked for technological solutions to low circulation statistics, under-usage by students and faculty, and what is perceived as a crisis in relevance, seeing themselves in competition with Google and Wikipedia. Academic libraries, however, are as relevant as they have been historically, as their primary functions within their university missions have not changed, but merely evolved. Going beyond the Gate Count argues that the problem is not relevance, but marketing and articulation. This book offers theoretical reasoning and practical advice to directors on how to better market the function of the library within and beyond the home institution. The aim of this text is to help directors, and ultimately, their librarians and staff get students and faculty back into the library, as a result of better articulation of the library’s importance. The first chapter explores the promotion of academic libraries and their function as educational systems. The next two chapters focus on the importance of the role social media and virtual presence in the academic library, and engaging and encouraging students to use the library through a variety of methods, such as visually oriented special collections. Remaining chapters discuss collaboration and collegiality, formalized reporting and marketing.
Offers clear, concise writing, with thoughtful discussions of the problems facing academic libraries
Demonstrates comprehensive and thoughtful research that informs theoretical approaches to realistic outcomes that address these problems
Provides helpful tables, illustrations, and photographs that evidence the collaborative nature of contemporary academic libraries
Provides practical examples from actual experiences that can be adapted by readers
Library directors and academic administrators, with a secondary audience consisting of academic librarians, MLIS students, and teaching faculty
List of figures and tables
Figures
Tables
About the authors
Acknowledgments
List of acronyms
Preface
Proactive marketing and the current situation
Ineffective, passive marketing: a failure at academic libraries
Proactive marketing as active marketing for the academic library
Using this book: an overview
About this book’s readership
1: So you’ve inherited an academic library: promotion through physical space
Abstract
New director visions and the academic library as a building
The learning commons is not the universal answer
Repurposing furniture and proactive marketing
Paying attention to the academic library’s large-scale features
Valuing the library space as physical space
Beyond fixtures and materials
You’ve also inherited people
Breaking down the four-wall isolation
Conclusions
2: The academic library as an educational system
Abstract
Academic libraries within parent institutions: getting on the same page
Keeping up with political and ethical situations
The academic library as a premier learner-centered environment
What kind of academic library and educational system am I inheriting?
Accountability and (or versus?) education
Conclusions
3: Your virtual presence should not go virtually ignored: the library website
Abstract
Relationship to marketing
Potential for marketing
Marketing principle 1: make sure it works
Marketing principle 2: display it like they say it
Marketing principle 3: link-happy sites make users unhappy
Role of the director
Marketing to the academic researcher
Conclusions
4: From Facebook to face-to-face: getting your “friends” into the library
Abstract
The digital native conundrum
More than photos of kittens and food: Facebook as communication
The advantages
Our avatars, ourselves
Conclusions
5: Virtual spaces and virtual messages: social media as marketing
Abstract
Joining the multiplayer set
The cloud (within the silver lining): ethical concerns
Chatting and learning: proprietary software and IM as teaching methods
If no one chats, did the library make a sound?
Reach out and teach someone: RSS feeds, podcasts, and remote conferencing
They like to watch: being there for students virtually
Extra! Extra! Read all about it: RSS feeds
Promoting the library with fun and games: Second Life
Conclusions
6: Engaging students through the arts and humanities: meaningful programming
Abstract
Meaningful, accessible, and assessable programming as proactive marketing
An existing problem: where have all the students gone?
Forgetting the academic librarian as information specialist
Answering to personalized and individualized needs
Academic library programming and the engaged library director
That initial spark: planning for programming as proactive marketing in the humanities
Preliminary planning for academic library programming
Using a liaison model to establish academic library programming
Academic and institutional purpose and identity
Materials, funding, and logistics
Assessment
Librarians as teachers
Programming as the academic library’s learner-centered activity
Conclusions
7: Getting students back into the library: “Beats and Bongos” lead them to books
Abstract
The Publicity and Public Relations Committee and marketing the academic library
Marketing problems before PaPR was established
Successful efforts prior to PaPR
Further preliminary research for the Beats and Bongos program
Early planning
Publicity for the program
Beats and Bongos in the subsequent years and the Holy Librarians
The structure of a typical Beats and Bongos program
Assessment of programming: marketing your academic library for a song
Conclusions
8: Librarians in the laboratory: partnered programming in the sciences and social sciences
Abstract
Reaching out first
The embedded librarian idea (modified)
Critical thinking and programming for sciences and social sciences
Thank you, Mr Wizard, Bill Nye – science guy, Carl Sagan, and Dick Feynman: making science cool through popular scientists
Cultivating creative rhizomes: offering the STEM fields some creative stimuli and outlets
Giving business some culture: academic library programming with a global emphasis
Engaging marketing students to market the academic library
Conclusions
9: Using visually oriented special collections materials to engage the community: documents, figurines, high-definition movie stills, clothing, and photography
Abstract
Special collections and identity
Waking up to having accessible special collections
The donors’ relation to “beautiful things”
Stuff, wonderful stuff: the allure of visually oriented special collections materials
Proactive marketing, policy-making, and the rapport between librarian and researcher
Ideas for proactively marketing academic libraries through their visually oriented special collections
Finding aids and making visually oriented special collections materials accessible
Conclusions
10: Using special collections materials and creating learning centers to engage the community: historic instruments, films, tools, and toys
Abstract
Some solutions to wasted space and resources in academic libraries
Access to collections is teaching and can shape the curriculum
Academic librarians as teachers and bureaucratic red tape
A world of pure imagination, with a little help from the teacher/librarian
The librarian’s interdisciplinary perspective and teaching
Teaching with artifacts and online materials
Grant administration, proactive marketing, and teaching in librariandirected learning centers: our own experience
Learning centers and transformative knowledge
Learning centers and media coverage
Conclusions
11: Collegiality and collaboration: marketing the library – and its librarians – to faculty
Abstract
Lost in translation, loss of engagement
Library faculty status is relevant to successful marketing
We have an image problem: its roots and consequences
Collaboration, collegiality, consistency
The librarian is the library
Collaborators matter: librarians as collaborative scholars
Being interdisciplinary means getting out
The role of the director
Conclusions
12: Reports and rapport: marketing the library to all stakeholders
Abstract
Revealing “the man behind the curtain”
Putting it in writing
Formalizing it
Crafting a marketable strategic plan
Being part of recruitment and retention
WOMMing up to marketing
Getting librarians involved: walking the walk and talking the talk
Making service part of marketing: here comes the library!
Benefiting: you can’t buy that kind of press
Aspiring to a higher profile lowers marketing hurdles
Conclusions
Conclusion
Index
No. of pages: 220
Language: English
Edition: 1
Published: August 25, 2014
Imprint: Chandos Publishing
Paperback ISBN: 9781843347873
eBook ISBN: 9781780634685
MG
Melissa U.D. Goldsmith
Melissa Goldsmith is currently the Head of Digital Special Collections at Elms College. She has published articles and scholarly reviews on music discography, information literacy, academic library outreach, and musical cultures in Notes, Choice, portal, Naturlaut, Screening the Past, Dead Reckonings, American Music, The Journal of the Society of American Music, and Fontes artis musicae. She has a CLIS, MLIS, and a PhD (in musicology).
Affiliations and expertise
Head of Digital Special Collections, Elms College, MA, USA
AF
Anthony J. Fonseca
Anthony J. Fonseca is currently the director at Elms College. He has published four books with Libraries Unlimited’s Genreflecting series and has an upcoming encyclopedia with ABC-CLIO, as well as articles and scholarly reviews in portal, Collaborative Librarianship, Technical Services Quarterly, Codex, Dissections, The Los Angeles Review of Books, The Journal of Film Music, and Screening the Past, and chapters in various books on music styles and cultures, successful transitions from high school to college, the novels of Ramsey Campbell, and the stories of Robert Aickman. He has an MLIS and a PhD (in literature). Both are regular contributors to encyclopedias with Greenwood, ABC-CLIO, Oxford University Press, and Salem.
Affiliations and expertise
Elms College, MA, USA
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