I've been approached by Facet Publishing to write a book on marketing modern libraries. It's intimidating (the previous Facet book on libraries was written by Terry Kendrick, who is a marketing legend and a member of the Marketing Guild and all that stuff) but a really exciting thing to be a part of. The idea is for it to cover all aspects of the nuts and bolts of marketing libraries - the grass roots - and to cover a wide spectrum of sectors, too.
Although the echo chamber theme will pop up here and there, this isn't a book about marketing the profession (or the industry) - it's about marketing your specific library. So, I would absolutely love to hear what you think you'd like to see in such a book. Each chapter will be on a different theme, and they'll all feature a case-study. I'm yet to finalise the proposal with Facet, so if you can give me your ideas quick I'll try and make sure they're addressed!
Stuff I'm currently intending to cover includes:
- Grass roots essentials
- Going to where your users are / user studies
- Marketing with social media + web2
- Marketing on no budget
- Marketing to internal stakeholders
- Language, style + materials
- Special collections, Archives and Library Branding
- Understanding the media and using them to market your library
- Rebranding, reinvention, and the Unlibrary concept
- Quick wins (a brief overview of a bunch of other people's success stories)
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What else would you like to see in there? Would you want more than one chapter on web stuff as it is so important these days? Do you think there should be a chapter about advocacy because without it we won't have any libraries left to market, or will the kind of people who'll buy this book not have time for all that? Do you know of a library with a story that would fit any of those themes as a case study?
I would absolutely love it if you can leave me some comments, or email me your thoughts if you'd rather it be private, and tweet a link to this post to encourage others to do the same (or share it on Facebook). I want to make the most relevant and useful tool possible. Thank you! :)
- thewikiman
P.S There will be a separate marketing blog and twitter account coming soon, once we've made the final decision on the name of the book. It'll cover all the stuff the book will cover, and also report on any other great marketing schemes happening out there in libraryland.