Marketing and Public Relations -- 1

For more than thirteen years I have been writing a semi-scholarly columns, Librarian's Lobby. It started as a current awareness and PR piece for the library I worked for. Over the years I tried to show my expertise at researching and the use of libraries. In some ways I wanted to show that librarians are not check out clerks. For that goal it worked. I wrote on topics that interested me and were supplied by my readers and friends. It did not succeed in raising awareness of libraries. While many people read the articles even years after they were written, my goals of promoting knowledge about the work and expertise of the librarian have not been met.

This school year I am the marketing and public relations vice president of librarians' group, Judaica Library Network. The whole idea of library marketing was opened to me when I published an article on marketing and later taught a course in library marketing and public relations. The past few weeks have been reading books on the topic and trying new marketing and promotion ideas. One book, The New Rules of Marketing & PR by David Meerman Scott (John Wiley, 2007), has raises some additional ideas and thoughts on the topic. I am going to be writing blog articles based on the chapters in his books. The articles will be my impressions and ideas for libraries based on what he says for businesses.

I hope this will be a two way street and you will share some of your thoughts and ideas.