[WEB4LIB] Re: library marketing was RE: Google Mail

[Stephen Ball]

"Why is it that sites with ISBNs have links to Amazon or Barnes and 
Noble and Powell's, but never to your public library?  Certainly there 
are a kickbacks, but not in every case."

Because the book stores provide a single, unique access point. If I 
could go to one site and link an ISBN to my local library, then I 
certainly would. The big problem with public libraries is that there are 
so many of them...and they all operate almost completely independently 
from each other. Sure it's not as bad as it once was, when every library 
had its own card catalog and data entry was repeated by every 
institution. But while that particular problem has been solved, 
libraries are still too seperate in most respects. It's the unification 
of the book store chains (indeed, store chains in general) that give 
them their marketing power. Starbucks has proven that even "trendy" can 
be condensed into a set of rules for nationwide distribution.

Libraries need to learn how to replicate some of the keys that led to 
this success. Libraries amazingly linked card catalogs together into a 
(more) unified bibiographic database, they now need to unify everything 
else. Library loans should be trival and commonplace, services should be 
consistent and reliable, patron contact points should be the same for 
every library. McDonald's proved that you can get by with mediocre food 
and service as long as it is the same mediocre food and service 
everywhere. When people are able to think about their library and know 
that it will provide a certain set of definite services and resources 
with a consistent way to access those services, then they will be more 
comfortable using them.

As it stands now, libraries are simply intimidating to the public at 
large or at least certainly not as welcoming as their local bookstore.

- Stephen Ball


Ross Singer wrote:

> I have to agree with Amos, here (for the umpteenth time).  As even
> academic libraries struggle with irrelevance to their core
> constituency, I would say it's important, dare I say even
> critical, to figure out how to be "trendy".
>
> Even more important than "trendy" (because it would be like
> "trendy with longevity") would be "ubiquity".  If only we could
> achieve the market share of a Starbucks (anyone?) or a Google,
> there wouldn't be the need to slash monograph budgets to pay for
> increasing serials bills.
>
> If libraries want to survive, it is going to have to be by at
> least paying attention to free-market success stories.  We must
> have public interfaces that are as easy to use as Amazon or
> Google.  We must make it easier to get the material that the user
> wants over Amazon's marketplace.  As long as my local public
> library takes 5 weeks /to deliver a book from another branch/, I
> will opt for buying the damn thing used off of Amazon for $3.50. I 
> would love to say that this is just isolated to one inefficient
> library system, but I see it again and again.
>
> Why is it that sites with ISBNs have links to Amazon or Barnes and
> Noble and Powell's, but never to your public library?  Certainly
> there are a kickbacks, but not in every case.
>
> "There's no question that we provide what people want. Barnes and
> Noble,
> the NY Times, Netflix, and ISPs charge for the same stuff that
> libraries
> GIVE AWAY in the form of books, movies, periodicals, and computer
> access."
>
> This very quote negates itself because these /very successful
> enterprises/ can /charge/ what for what we /give away/.
>
> We don't give many people what they want, at all, and we better
> figure out something soon, because someday somebody who charges
> for what we do (Questia, Elsevier, Google?) might take away those
> remaining "customers", as well.
>
> -Ross.
>
>  
>
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---
Stephen Ball
Reserves Processor
R.B. House Undergraduate Library
UNC-Chapel Hill