How to Market Your Library Service Effectively (2nd ed.)

Citation

Hendry, J.D. (1999), "How to Market Your Library Service Effectively (2nd ed.)", Library Review, Vol. 48 No. 1, pp. 49-50. https://doi.org/10.1108/lr.1999.48.1.49.7

<P>Information is now a marketable commodity. Thus there is a need to market information effectively by understanding the needs, and then efficiently meeting those needs, of customers in a competitive environment. The essential disciplines required to meet your customers′ needs and then attract them to your information services must be paramount. This may be so, but it is a huge change in attitudes and perceptions for many involved in the wide range of public funded sectors in librarianship and information science.

<P>Thus a change in attitudes and perceptions needs to take place. Not to abandon the traditional principles of the public service ethos, but to recognise that in order to deliver these services effectively to those who need them most, we need to adapt the tools of the market in the rapidly developing global information society. This sounds a very serious business. However, this is no overly serious handbook. It is brightly and positively written, and easy to follow.

<P>Its authors tell us that: Marketing is fun. Marketing is about thriving in difficult times. But above all, marketing is about doing things′′. We are then taken through marketing strategies, market planning, implementation and promotion, and finishing, rather breathlessly, with a series of four case studies: one in the Health Service, one in the private sector, and two in the public library sector. Not only is this a helpful handbook, it is a good read.