marketing, the "imminent demise of librarianship," and skill development

[Jesse Ephraim]

"But while we're complaining about how we suck at marketing [and still
not
really coming up with any useful suggestions for fixing that, AFAICS),
let's
also complain about how we suck at valuing our profession. While we are,
yet
again, predicting our own imminent demise, should we also plan for the
demise of all of our educational institutions as well?"

The solution to the marketing problem is simple - just learn basic
marketing skills and use them. In general, I don't see librarians
working hard at marketing themselves and failing - I just see them
making half-hearted (or misguided) efforts at it, if they make any real
effort at all.  We aren't to the point of needing a fix to our marketing
procedures - we just need to start making a serious effort at doing it.

During graduate school (the first time) in the early 90's I worked for
several years in a bookstore.  The manager encouraged all the employees
to come up with creative marketing ideas and help to implement them.
The basic principles I learned there have served me well in all my jobs,
in the library and elsewhere.  There is nothing wrong with borrowing a
few concepts from the retail world, especially since we are (in SOME
ways - note the caps) in competition with the large chain bookstores and
Amazon.  Library schools need to start requiring classes in realistic
library marketing.  More business management courses wouldn't hurt,
either.

Much of the problem that I have seen with the "imminent demise of the
profession" folks is that many librarians seem to want to learn a set of
skills and not be expected to update them over time.  I worked as a
programmer for 10 years, and many of my skills became obsolete every 6
months.  Part of the profession is constantly learning new languages and
skills - it just comes with the territory.  You could say the same thing
about librarianship today.

I can't tell you how many times I have heard things like "I don't want
to have to learn all this computer stuff."  The reality of librarianship
(and many other professions) today is that workers have to take a more
dynamic approach to skill development.  I'm not particularly fond of the
nitty-gritty of audio file conversions, but if some technological shift
makes it necessary for librarians to start learning that I would happily
do so.  We don't have to become obsolete in a changing world - we just
need to change with it.

"I DO think that we need to think HARD about how we offer what we offer,
and instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, work with Google to make
this tool work with us."

Absolutely!

- Jesse