marketing, lobbying, and vendors

[Jesse Ephraim]

"My marketing beef: most librarians seem completely unaware that there
is a whole world of marketing out there that's more suitable for us:
non-profit and arts marketing."

Unfortunately, many non-profit and arts organizations do not do a very
good job of marketing themselves, either.  

"I keep seeing calls for us to learn marketing but simply borrowing what
is designed for a profit-based world and putting it into libraries
doesn't work. Which is why, IMHO, we
haven't been very successful so far!"

We can't borrow much of anything as-is from the retail world - we take
what works, adapt it, and use it in our world.  Large retail chains
(Borders, B&N, etc.) did the same years ago when they first starting
borrowing ideas from libraries (extensive and comfortable seating areas,
allowing customers to read in the store for hours at a time, etc.).  

"Apart from targeted marketing skills, we also need to learn how to
lobby and advocate for libraries and our services, which is different
from marketing."

Precisely.  Librarians should become more aggressive when dealing with
vendors, too, demanding more appropriate features in software products
and refusing to pay the initial asking price and maintenance fees for
them.  There is room to bargain with any vendor.  When I first became a
librarian (after years as a programmer) I was shocked to see how many
libraries pay the first price a vendor throws at them.

- Jesse