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The Olympic training field for planning quality library services - Marketing of Library and Information Services
Library Trends, Wntr, 1995 by Martha E. Catt
Abstract
Planning for customer-focused library services begins with looking at these services from the customer's viewpoint. With this focus as a guide, the preparation of goals and objectives needs to be a corporate response to a re-examination of the library's business, the library's customers, and what those customers consider to be of value. Determining what is of value to the customer will require ongoing data collection and evaluation of that data for interpretation into a relevant mission statement as well as roles, goals, and objectives. Just like the Olympic athletes, libraries may want to pursue the gold in terms of offering valued and quality services to ever-changing customers' needs.
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A Comparison
The athletes at the 1994 Olympic Winter Games shared a common goal - take home the gold medal. Most of the athletes had worked many years for their chance to perform flawlessly for a few minutes in front of millions of people worldwide. The pressure, pain, preparation, and passion the athletes invested was both inspiring and exhilarating.
The media's interpretation of the athletes' journey to the gold at Lillehammer, Norway, revealed that these young people could boast more than the pursuit of a common dream. Although they had come from all over the world, from different cultures and families, and with different educational backgrounds and financial opportunities, the athletes were tough, focused, disciplined, high-energy risk takers. More importantly, they were good at mastering and respecting the fundamentals of their sports.
The Olympic Team is an example of a well-marketed service organization which presents itself to the public as a source of pride, accomplishment, and motivation. Like libraries, the Olympic Team is supported by public contributions. One team mission is to reinforce American values and the concept that anyone can succeed. The Olympic Team offers a "feeling" of pride, oneness, and sense of well-being. The media are successful in subtly transferring the winning of the gold, ownership, and the team's success of this act to the American public who in turn support the team.
Those affiliated with the process of developing quality and meaningful library services may not be pursuing a Lillehammer gold medal but do pursue the support of the library's public as well as a personal sense of pride and accomplishment. There is a powerful comparison between the organization's pursuit of excellence combined with the need to transfer "ownership" of the accomplishment to the publics served by libraries.
The Challenge
Studies of individuals and organizations who achieve success demonstrate that planning and preparation are fundamental to the realization of that success. It sounds so easy, especially since the fundamentals of planning are readily understandable. However, it is the daily translation of these fundamentals into a successful program that provides the challenge.
Even though the basics are essentially easy to grasp intellectually, many nonprofit organizations as well as profit corporations continue to founder in the application of basic planning techniques. An organization which has a clear but simple grasp of what it is, who its customers are, what products or services it is in business to provide, where it is going, and how it plans to get there is more the exception than the rule in today's changing marketplace and in today's library.
A cover story in Business Week (March 26, 1990) featured Frances Hesselbein, former head of the Girl Scouts. The Girl Scouts, as does the American Olympic Team, depends on public goodwill and positive perception to prosper and successfully serve. Hesselbein was being heralded as having turned the Girl Scouts into an "innovative, customer-driven enterprise." She started by conducting "a major re-examination of the Girl Scouts' mission. 'We kept asking ourselves very simple questions. What is our business? Who is the customer? and What does the customer consider value? " ... Hesselbein continued, 'When you are clear about your mission, corporate goals and operating objectives flow from it'" (quoted in Byrae, 1990, pp. 70-72).
The Commitment
A key to success, whether on a Norway ski slope or in a corporate boardroom or at the director's desk in a rural public library, is that application of basic planning fundamentals. There is, however, a critical prerequisite to this step. Just like the Olympic athlete, the first step must be commitment to a well-conceived and simple course of action.
That commitment might be defined as acquiring, keeping, and satisfying library customers by providing services and programs that a majority of customers have expressed an interest in receiving. It will mean defining mission statement, roles, goals, and objectives from the customers' point of view rather than operating from the library's historic or even current perspective.
Coincidently this happens to be the basic premise of the marketing concept. Prior to adopting this concept as a course of action, it will be critical for library leaders to determine whether or not they are willing to actually follow through and provide what the customers indicate they want and need. This commitment to providing what the customers prefer will take the library leadership on a journey, which, when examined closely, may seriously challenge the rationale of earlier management strategy. Administrators may be best able to make such a shift in their management approach only if they completely commit to change and understand the potential consequences in advance of implementation.
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