[WEB4LIB] Re: library marketing was RE: Google Mail invitations? Any takers?

[Mr. Brian Collier]

This is veering off topic, but I have to disagree with Roy's evaluation
of A and B. 

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. As far as ease of access, all people have to do is walk, run,
bike, or drive to their community library. I suppose we could make it
easier for some people to get that information if we streamed it
digitally, but given the relatively low percentage of the population
that has a computer and broadband connection, we'd be missing too many
consumers.

The crux of the question was how can we make library services "trendy",
and that's the problem. I for one don't want my library to be trendy.
(Starbucks anyone?)

Maybe library services don't get the online popularity that Google
enjoys, and while this list is all about Web library services, that's
not our home turf. We (largely publicly funded entities) can't compete
with Google (a private corporation) that way, nor should we. We are not
an online mogul, we serve the public face-to-face in a distributed
network. Take a gate count. How many people came into your library this
week? Multiply that by the number of public libraries in your state, or
better yet by the number of libraries in the U.S. or across the globe.

To bring things somewhat back within the scope of this list; we can and
should use online tools to provide another layer of service to the
community, which is why we're getting these messages in our inboxes, but
if we lose sight of the fact that we are not an online service, then we
may as well shut the doors and let Google take over.

Brian Collier  



-----Original Message-----
From: web4lib at webjunction.org
[mailto:web4lib at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Roy Tennant
Sent: Monday, February 14, 2005 5:31 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: [WEB4LIB] Re: library marketing was RE: Google Mail
invitations? Any takers?

On Feb 14, 2005, at 2:23 PM, Margaret Henderson wrote:

> How can we make library
> services as trendy as Gogle mail?

A) Provide something people really want, and B) make it easy to get.

In general, we do so-so on A and suck at B. Next question?
Roy