[Web4lib] RE: [Publib] re: database marketing

Sun Sep 28 14:47:35 EDT 2008

Greetings,

The arguments/strategies regarding database marketing
demonstrate the flaws in the process.

1. The committee process resulting in consensus strives
to achieve the lowest common denominator based on shared values.
2. The lowest common denominator for consensus is the way
things have always been marketed by libraries.
3. The marketing process of online resources by libraries
does not work.

So, a committee of librarians solving the problem of
marketing databases is a formula for failure.

I love to search, develop search strategies, and help
others create a critical thinking skills path.  And, the
online database providers are more than happy to design
an interface that will facilitate critical thinking
skills.  But Google learned and Yahoo learned and AOL
learned and MSN learned that people first and foremost
want a box that can auto-magically tell them where
to go and what to do.  So, the GUIs developed by the
online database providers do not have the same apparent 
value as the publicly accessible search engines: 

On-line Database

Find your library website
Find you library card
Type in your 14 digit ID and maybe a PIN you had to create/ memorize
Find the database that you want
Figure out what you are looking for
Use the native database search strategy
Find the most relevant information

vs

Search engine

Type a few words in the box at the top of your browser

Libraries spend a huge amount of money on databases. Most
technologically savvy librarians realize that the public
is likely to use Google first and library databases will
be used rarely, if ever.  The investment of time/ effort
to search Google is very low.  All you have to do is type one or more
words in a box and you get auto-magic results.  The least cost hiring rule
applies to database searching.  Why would a newcomer to an area take unknown
back roads to a place they have never been before, when
the main highway is so well marked?

Most of my work and research over the past two years has
focused on for-profit design and optimization.  If Libraries
are indeed interested in marketing their services first 
rather than promoting an internalized value, they CAN
redirect the path of the patrons and win on both accounts.
However, in order to do so we need to change the
formula.

"The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we
miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it." - Michelangelo

*************************************************
Robert L. Balliot
Skype: RBalliot
Bristol, Rhode Island
http://oceanstatelibrarian.com/contact.htm
*************************************************

-----Original Message-----
From: publib-bounces at webjunction.org [mailto:publib-bounces at webjunction.org]
On Behalf Of Sara Weissman
Sent: Saturday, September 27, 2008 9:23 PM
To: publib at webjunction.org
Subject: [Publib] re: database marketing

>>I would say this is a topic a lot of other libraries are interested in, 
so, please, if anyone does have a marketing plan for databases, please 
respond to the group as a whole. We could all benefit from this 
information.   [etc.]

After years! on our consortium database committee, which does unit cost
analysis 
every year (sessions or retrievals/cost), before renewal  ... I've begun to
give up on 
all this. The public will not really use databases until/unless they are as
easy as 
Google.  
   In a nutshell, what we've learned over years and years of cracking our
brains over 
this problem:

1) when usage falls off we first look to see if librarians need a refresher
course? 
(We did a DB survey of staff ...deeeepressing was finding that staff on one
FLOOR 
of a library knew we had a product, staff on the other floor didn't.)
     Every two years we do a staff "scavenger hunt", providing 15-20
questions that 
can be answered from one or another subscription database. Vendors have been

very! generous with prizes for staff.
    Outcome:  one year uptick in database usage, slump again in the second
year.

2) EBSCO is a no brainer, because kids begin using it in elementary school
3) RefUSA is the giant of the landscape, because entrepreneurs desperately
need 
to run up client lists.
4) Everything else is problematic. The sophisticated patron is s/he who
obscurely 
realizes what they want is probably? in some database or other? so ask us to
find 
it.
5) Excess. We find college students utterly swamped in too many
choices...small 
colleges offer 50+ databases, large 150+.  We send students off with the
print 
outs of their school database list, highlighted to the DB they need for the
current 
assignment. Many (distance learners) also need instruction in how to log on
from 
home.

Tips:
forget bookmarks ...few people take them, fewer people read them;
do NOT organize databases by title in your web pages. Use subjects
http://www.mclib.info/remote.html
Only we librarians know the difference between EBSCO, Facts on File,
ProQuest, 
etc. etc.
Our cut point has become $2/session.  Under $2 is generally acceptable. The 
minute something starts to nudge that mark ..much less exceed it?! it is a
serious, 
serious candidate for drop.
    If you are having to spend $X in staff time/materials to market a
database? Is it 
right for your user universe? or is it time to drop the product?

--------
Reference Dept
Morris County Library
http://www.mclib.info
(973) 285-6969 

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