Marketing without much money: you don't need big bucks to get the word out. Here are a few ideas

Information Outlook, Oct, 2004 by Judith Siess

"The overriding goal of marketing is to assure that the library will remain as an information center within the community." (Leerburger 1989, 8)

If no one knows about your library and how it can help its community meet its goals, it will not--and should not--continue to exist. It's that simple. Leerburger's statement sums this up nicely; let's look at it in more detail:

* "The overriding goal"--Marketing is the most important thing a librarian can do-in order to stay employed.

* "Marketing"--Marketing is not just selling; it is having a plan to communicate to your community the value of using the library.

* "The library will remain as an information center"--I don't mean merely that the library remain a physical place. Its function and its staff (you, the librarian or information professional) continue to exist in the organization.

* "The community?"--This your customers--students and faculty of a university, employees of a corporation or non-profit organization, doctors and nurses and patients in a hospital, lawyers and others in a law firm, or wherever you find yourself.

Why do you have to market? These days, the library is not the first place people choose to look for information. Your customers have many other choices, from bookstores to document delivery services. Even if an organization wants a library, it may not know that it needs a librarian--a trained information professional. It's your job to show them how you can add value, why a secretary or clerk could not do your job. But that is really not why I'm writing this article.

It's Up to You

There is only one person that can do this marketing--you, the librarian. No one else will do it for you. You know your library better than anyone else. You know--or should know--your organization and customers better than an outsider possibly could. Finally, no one has more to gain with marketing or more to lose without it.

When should you market? The answer to this is easy--always. Every encounter with a customer or a prospective customer is a marketing opportunity. Before you can market your library and yourself, you need to decide what your real product is. It is not books or journals, or even document delivery or quick reference or online searches or bibliographies. It is not even information. Your real products are answers to your customers' questions, solutions to their problems.

Marketing is not hard. And it doesn't require a lot of money or time. It just takes organization and some good ideas. You'll have to do the organizing, but here are a lot of good ideas. Not all will work in your particular library, but you should be able to use at least a few.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Start a Newsletter

Every library should have a newsletter. Producing one is relatively easy and inexpensive, especially if you make it an electronic newsletter. It should appear on a regular, predictable basis, ideally monthly, but at least quarterly. Don't start a newsletter unless you or the library can commit to continue it and you can meet the added service demands that the marketing may produce. Keep it simple and easy to read. There should be a mix of long and short articles, but the whole thing should be no more than a couple of pages. You may want to consider having multiple newsletters, each aimed at a different target market.

What should you include in a newsletter? Tell your customers about new services or products; feature under-utilized services; list recent acquisitions (books, journals, even standards or pictures); write a short report about a conference or continuing education session you attended; include excerpts from articles by you in professional journals; or publish testimonials from satisfied customers.

In short, your newsletter can contain anything that will help promote to users and potential users the idea that the library can help them. A good column idea is to feature sample questions answered recently. This can encourage others to come in and let you help them. Funny stories, jokes, puzzles, or cartoons (remember to observe copyright rules) are a good addition, but they should make up a relatively small part of the whole.

You also should have other forms of publicity. When you find an article that is on target for one of your customers (especially a manager), send it to him or her with a personal note such as, "I saw this article and thought it might help you with the XYZ project."

Exhibits and displays such as bulletin boards are inexpensive and help make you a part of the community. Try a "wall of fame" with testimonial letters from satisfied customers, a "prescription" pad for physicians with a referral to the library for more information, or a list of the top 10 websites in your customers' subject area.

Here are more ideas from fellow librarians:

* Run a contest. Provide database or Web

* cheat sheets" or guides. Make a library crossword puzzle or list of library trivia.

* Create paths made up of different types of feet leading patrons to different parts of the collection.