[WEB4LIB] Re: library marketing (long, but with an on-topic point)

[bardsley at u.washington.edu]

On Tue, 15 Feb 2005, Mr. Brian Collier wrote:

>> Why should library services not strive for online success such as
>> Google's? Who says we can't compete with this or that, just because we
> are not
>> private?
>
> That's like asking why Walmart doesn't strive to serve coffee like
> Starbucks. Walmart is a department store and Starbucks is already doing
> it. We are not Google and Google is already doing the online thing
> better than we can because that's Google's mission and it's all Google
> does. If we try to be Google, then we water down our purpose as
> libraries. There's nothing negative in suggesting that we do what we're
> here to do and do it better than anyone else.

I don't feel this is a very close analogy. It can be said that Google provides access to information just as libraries do. Google does other things and so do libraries, but in at least the information provision arena they compete.

- Mark Bardsley