Visible Librarian: Asserting Your Value with Marketing and Advocacy

by Judith A. Siess

Recent law, corporate, and even public library closings are the sad confirmation that libraries are no longer a given. Despite the fact that librarians bring unique value to their communities and organizations, too often their work goes on under the radar. The benefits provided by information professionals are invisible and taken for granted as Internet search engines replace real experts. It's time to assert your value and the value of the resources you marshal. Step from behind the desk or computer to make your community aware of just how indispensable your services are. Here are all the tools you need to become the "squeaky wheel" and attract the attention your work deserves. Use these practical strategies to connect with customers, make services both visible and valuable to the community, and get the word out using proven marketing, customer service, and public relations tactics specifically tailored to the library environment. Learn Library directors, department heads, solo Learn how NOT to be invisible! Packed with all the best practices in marketing library services, this hands-on guide provides inspiring stories and case studies of library colleagues around the nation who are successfully advocating and marketing themselves and their services.

Genres: Nonfiction, Librarianship, Professional Development, Textbooks

172 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

Reviews

[Elaine · Rating 4 out of 5]

For a ~20 year old book, not as dated as you'd expect -- kudos to Siess on that. It's focused more on the principles of asserting value, and while there are specific outreach examples provided, the real driver is trying to get librarians to think of proving and communicating their value. (Sadly, for a ~20 year old book, that message is still needed. Or at least, the intro to the particulars of execution... I have had disagreements with librarian colleagues about basic marketing best practice of not trying to target all audiences with one message kind of thing.) Or that we need to market not just special events but our everyday resources AND our everyday services.

A couple big points from the first chapter (I literally made these an extra-big font in my fonts):

Libraries don’t die a violent, sudden death; they fade away as customers stop coming. (Siess 8)

But the library’s biggest and most dangerous competitor is simply doing without. (Siess 4)

I know librarianship isn't surgery -- the stakes aren't, typically, that high. But no one raindrop is responsible for the flood -- enough sense of "good enough even without the library" or worse, "I had an underwhelming experience at the library" that lead to negative word-of-mouth...and libraries die. Or at least struggle. It all adds up, and it's at least life-or-death for us the librarians, if we want to continue to be make a living on being librarians... Anyhoo. I digress.

Siess is writing from the POV of primarily special libraries -- corporate, and then medical -- but she does make a point of addressing academic and public libraries, too. Besides that, I think even some of the points that were discussed specifically to corporate still apply elsewhere, e.g. are the higher ups coming to the library for info when they need to make decisions or plans, and if not, why not?

Stylistically, the book is written in a way I tell students not to do -- very heavy on selected quotes from many sources strung together as quotes without much padding or synthesis. But whatever, I got plenty out of it.

[Monique · Rating 4 out of 5]

So was super excited to glimpse this title inviting me from the shelf—The Visible Librarian, it spoke to me ..as the powerful, the behind the scene source for all answers, research assistance, information literacy and everything you are interested in librarians have a curiosity that is insatiable and has always been there but, sadly, with Google being second nature and information no matter how dubious being delivered in seconds librarians are woefully undervalued, underutilized and kinda---invisible.. Now tasked with motivating a profession of self imposed introverts who prefer to read and learn unless engaged with a question and an opportunity to read and learn more LOL this book aims to inspire and get librarians vocal and persuasive about their needs, their talents and their worth, I mean seriously where would the world be without librarians? As my dream profession and hopeful career change I was into as I am all about making my profession better and some cold hard facts came out with one of my favorite being “If no one knows about your library and how it can help its community meet its goals, the library will not-and should not-continue to exist”..Libraries need to be established as indispensable resources, places of knowledge, books, internet and where learning is encouraged, fostered and built but how to make the world see its treasure and its greatest resource when the internet is so prevalent so this book aims to teach marketing skills, advocacy, promotion and ways to become visible from giveaways, partnering with other resources, bulletins, direct mail, emails, school and community outreach and creating library websites to find library users, meet new ones and interact with people in the community and world in need of the services of the library—this book stresses the importance of knowing your customer and meeting and exceeding their needs and expectation in customer service, delivery of product, location and overall environment and experience. Not working in a library as of yet but seeking employment there in the near future I feel this book as my side reading for the last month and a half and also a citation in a recent assignment—oh yea books get double use now tee hee—it is a great intro prep course on marketing and creating the customer and establishing a reputation as an open place of inclusion and education for all.. As stated “In a librarian’s quest to empower users we have buried the role of the librarian in information provision. We put more and more resources on websites and intranets –without making customers aware of what it took to get them there. Customers do not see the process of selection, creation of user-friendly interfaces, or maintenance of the online catalog and other resources.”—whoa how powerful was that shameless librarian plug LMAO..okay okay so I did enjoy this book and learned a lot, its jampacked with references, stories, real world examples and positivity for the future of libraries of all kinds and librarians—if—we know how to show enough of our power to be useful but keeping enough hidden to basically rule the world bwa ha ha..No but seriously to sum up the book enforces the librarian as an information professional relevant for information in the past, present and future—Robert F. Muir wrote “A physicist may take eight years to formulate, and a biochemist one day to replicate but a librarian can do ten years of research in an hour-that’ powerful! But does anyone out there know? ……Okay okay laying it on thick I know but I see this as a career I want to immerse myself into as I am truly interested now as I learn more and more and want to be an advocate and visible librarian as well!—Recommended for all thinking about trying to be a librarian as there is wayyy more to it than there seems and I can’t wait to be a part!

[Alison · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is written from the perspective of special libraries, and though the author does make sure she includes public, school and academic libraries in her discussion, much of the content is special library-centric. Some of the information and suggestions she shared simply do not have a counterpart in the academic library world. Discussions of clients and additional services that can be offered are interesting, but I couldn't see how they could be ported to an academic library setting. That said, I did get some useful ideas for programming from my initial read of the book, and I think that revisiting it later may yield some ideas as to how to put some of the other ideas to work in my library.

[Ryan Scicluna · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting Book but most of the stuff I already knew from basic marketing and also not a lot of stuff about specific libraries (in my case Academic ones). I Suggest it as a light read just to familiries one self with some basic marketing concepts.

[Liz De Coster · Rating 2 out of 5]

Informative, but pretty dry, and mostly culled from other resources rather than original commentary.

[Tina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every librarian needs to read this... especially chapter 5!