It seems I have become embroiled in a debate about marketing librarians and not necessarily marketing heir libraries at the same time. My friend Greg over at Open Stacks recently wrote a blog where he talked about being interest in:
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Library Goon's Weblog 
Hey Tim,
Thanks for keeping the discussion going. There’s something weird about the display of your post. Looks like it’s there twice.
Anyway, to respond a bit: “I think what Greg and some of the others are really talking about is librarians becoming active public relations ambassadors and not really marketing.”
Well said. Don’t disagree with you there. I’m using marketing a bit loosely as Stephen Kellat has already pointed out to me. This marketing/PR business is a new world to me, so I’m adopting the verbiage of the people I’m paying attention to.
BUT, just like you, I’m gonna stick to my main point.
The discussion of marketing libraries is age-old. That’s why you’re not seeing so much about it now. We all collectively acknowledge that we’re terrible at it. I’m mainly saying that I’m not looking to be the one to hash out solutions to that particular problem. Not on my blog, at least. I’m not saying it’s not an issue. It is! Big time. But there are others banging that drum, which you can now count yourself as one of them. And that’s awesome and necessary.
My personal interest, on the other hand, is in showing librarians how, through the careful management of online identity combined with a willingness and desire to reach out and engage digital communities, each of us can establish a meaningful presence in the digital landscape. And that type is presence is powerful mojo, both for librarianship and for libraries. I want the digirati, who have less and less use for physical libraries, to know that librarians are engaged members of the online community. I want to connect with people, as both as a passionate, engaged individual and as a librarian. Do I still want them to come into our libraries? You bet. But where we perhaps differ is that I don’t necessarily see that as the endgame. That’s not my primary motivating force.
Mind you, I do these things, not as part of my day job, but as part of my commitment to librarians (and I don’t just mean people with master’s degrees) and to librarianship in general. It’s true that those that have a blog are already marketing themselves. My assertion is they, by and large, are missing opportunities for engagement and I want to change that. They are speaking at people instead of speaking to/with people. The vast majority of the library blogosphere is writing and thinking about librarianship outside of their day jobs. Other people need to know how passionate we are. It’s about making connections, being engaged and not about selling the brick and mortar presence. It’s about changing perceptions one person at a time by plugging in to what other people are doing, saying, feeling and engaging those conversations. That’s what the new social media is all about and I think librarians should be taking advantage of it.
My angle is not dismissive of the need to market libraries. They are not mutually exclusive things. Raising the profile of librarians WILL raise the profile of libraries. I just don’t think I really have anything to offer to that discussion right now.
Let me also say that these are not fully-formed notions on my part. Your comments are really helping me to think about what it is I’m trying to say. As you can see by the length of these comments, I’m not there yet. But thanks for hashing it out with me.
Greg,
I will confess that I am still forming my thoughts in this area as a librarian. As I mentioned, I come from a business marketing background, so I have a lot of baggage that I am willing to re-evaluate as I go along.
I better understand your position through your posts and our conversations, but would like to share a few more things with you.
Recently there has been talk about why the public does not read library blogs. I would ask if those same reasons would apply to librarians being active in online communities. If we are out there talking about librarianship and how great librarians are, who is going to be interested? I would be interested in seeing your “marketing” plan and what your goals and conversion points are. Could you point out an effort similar to what you are thinking about that has shown success, I would be very interested.
Now if you’re a librarian who’s hanging out and talking sports and what not online and can help someone find an answer to a challenging question, then cool! Are you then going to say, “hey man, no problem, I am a librarian.” Just like in real life people online tend to congregate with those of like mind and share the same interests. This provides both problems and opportunities for a librarian seeking to go the public relations route online. You surely don’t want to be perceived as lurking in the background waiting for an opportunity. Businesses learned that this can get them in real trouble, very quickly.
Not saying it’s wrong, just saying that it needs to be open and well thought out.
Finally, you mention how everyone is aware of the issues with libraries and marketing. I believe at some level you are attempting to address that issue, even though you are denying it (or so it seems to me). Would both libraries and librarians benefit even more if we directed our energy to breaking the status quo and getting library marketing on the right track?
Does your library send out press release whenever they hire new librarians? Or when one of their librarians has been honored or is giving a presentation at a national conference? If librarians split from their institutions, we could all be in a world of hurt.
Can you see a future where librarians, proudly tout their institutions and where those same libraries tout their librarians.
That’s enough rambling for one day and perhaps even for this subject.
Good questions and comments, Tim.
One immediate response: The point is not, in my mind, to talk about librarianship and how great librarians are. The point is to simply be engaging people who happen to be librarians. The perceptual changes in what others think about librarians follows naturally.
“You surely don’t want to be perceived as lurking in the background waiting for an opportunity.” No lurking allowed! That’s my main point, really. Engage, engage, engage. The opportunity exists in the active engagement, not to direct the conversation towards libraries, but to plug into what other people are about.
The public doesn’t read library blogs, because the blogs suck. Because they fail to engage. Because they talk at people, instead of with people.
“Can you see a future where librarians, proudly tout their institutions and where those same libraries tout their librarians”
Yes. I can see a present where some libraries “get it” and are already doing that. But I’m a librarian whether I have an institution to tout or not. That’s what Connie was getting at last night.
Again, you’ll get no argument from me that there is a mutually beneficial relationship to the co-marketing of librarians and libraries. And maybe, in some back-ass way, I am trying to address the marketing problem in libraries. I’m not sure.
I’m still coming from the perspective that I’m feeling something in my approach to the digital community that’s powerful. It’s far from a real strategy. It’s just a notion. But when I hear someone like Mitch Joel, who I respect immensely, get excited about an audio comment from a librarian, a comment that had nothing to do with the fact that I was a librarian or was in any way about libraries, I know that thousands of people are hearing him say it and that there is a meaningful impression made on his audience. It may be a one-time thing and it may be fleeting, but it’s meaningful nonetheless. I want more. I want more librarians engaging the conversations that are happening outside our sphere about social media, about PR and marketing. Get out of our little boxes and engage.
I don’t have a plan. Hell, I don’t even have a fully-formed perspective. I’m just puttin’ stuff out there and seeing what sticks. Your engagement is really helping with that. But putting myself out there is a key component of what I think I’m doing right and I want to pass that feeling on to others.
Okay, so now that you are starting to better understand what you want, so am I or I hope so. So let me summarize what I am hearing you say…
Basically you think that librarians, being real people, should act like it and be actively engaged in the online community?
If that is correct, then amen brother. Maybe the way you used “librarians” and marketing a lot threw me.
Pretty much, bro. Distillation is never a bad thing. Logorrhea does get the better of me sometimes.
I can see now that the term marketing has a lot of baggage behind it, which I simply didn’t realize. Of course, the term librarian has a lot of baggage too and I really did know that already.
Active engagement is the key though. It’s not a natural librarian skill and just putting up a blog or twittering or whathaveyou doesn’t mean that you’re doing it. It’s all about conversations and making real connections.
You, in a short time, have already established that you are going to be actively engaged. And it’s a wonderful thing. Keep on keepin’ on.
In this vein of mutual agreement it would be interesting to do a survey and see how many librarians are actively engaged in online communities that are not library/librarian related. I must admit, that I am not at this time, other than a personal/family blog.
I found your statement above about it not being “an natural librarian skill” interesting and disturbing at the same time. Are libraries hiring the wrong kind of people? Why are libraries loaded with introverts when we need extroverts? This would be an interesting topic to discuss, kind of falls into the “Good to Great” concept of getting the right people on the bus.
Maybe it would make a good Uncontrolled Vocabulary (http://uncontrolledvocabulary.com/) segment. But then you may have already done so.
Nobody can market themselves without any basis. We are Librarians as we have the backing of the Libraries. No professional can market without a backing. Librarians are the modest people who get back less than half they deserve. Most of the cases we provide free information service – we are not acknowledged – where as any other profession – viz. Doctors, Engineers, Lawyers, Consultants – etc. even if their work fails they are paid well and acknowledged. We all should remember that the number of years of schooling required in these professions, including Librarians, remains the same in most part of the world. As regards to doing a survey – the results of it will only put our morale down – never ever attempt for it. We all have a long way to go ….
First, let me say that librarianship, seen from the outside, is a profession of introverts. This is one of the perception problems that I think my attitude of engagement hopes to address.
It’s perhaps not that libraries hire the wrong people, but that the people who are already there aren’t ready for/interested in this culture shift. Yet those people aren’t walking out the door either. The oft-predicted massive wave of librarian retirement never happens.
So we’re left trying to change paradigms by actually transforming well-entrenched personality types. Not easy. Gosh, look how hard it was/is just to get reference staff into the idea of actually approaching patrons to see if they need help, instead of waiting for them to approach as they always had. Roaming the floors looking for interaction was a major paradigm shift to them and it almost certainly drove some folks to retire. And many managers still have to fight with their staff to get them moving and pro-active.
Mind you, this is overgeneralizing and I don’t mean to imply that there aren’t plenty of extroverted, highly engaged people at all ages and levels of experience in the profession. But, as I mentioned in my post, I’m a natural introvert and extroversion is a learned behavior for me, one that has paid off tremendously. I’m trying to pull people in that same direction, because I think it has provided me so much value and can do the same for others.
Again, you’re doing wonders for shaping my thoughts on this stuff. Thank you for that.
[…] synonym for promotion.” Tim Keneipp, who begins his thoughts in the comments, but ultimately takes the conversation over to his blog, had this to say: “I think what Greg and some of the others are really talking about is […]
If you analyse the situation of the economic crisis – you will get to know that it was all because of the extroverts – they hyped everything – they manipulated the figures in their books to show that they are doing well and it was because of their efforts things were looking bright. They fooled their bosses, the bosses fooled their financiers and investers; and financier fooled the world.
Do you want the Librarians to replicate this act? Librarians need to act on facts – at least documentary evidence …