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April 14, 2007
Marketing and promotion of libraries and reference works
It is often said that public libraries should promote themselves more effectively than they do. I normally disagree and say that there is abundant and high quality promotion of books - and information channels-- and that libraries should concentrate on their role which is to have the items in stock that are always being talked about. Almost every tv, radio and newspaper item every single day, relates to books in one way or another--- good book stores market themselves by having a reputation for being the place you can find these things; libraries should simply do the same.
However there is an exception to this in the matter of reference works, which has been a discussion point on this site in the past few days. Few people know that in the last year or so public libraries have done deals with several major reference publishers to offer important works free online to library users. These include such items as The Oxford English Dictionary; The Dictionary of National Biography; The Times Newspaper Archive and many other works of international importance. Moreover, few people know what these works contain and therefore do not realise and are not aware of the worlds they open up.
The free availability of these sources should be being promoted, heavily and strongly by their publishers. I strongly urge the officials of the library service to insist that part of the terms of agreement they have with Oxford University Press and others should include national promotion of the availability and content of their publications.. it is the same idea as Waterstone's doing a deal on front list promotion, but rather more dignified, worthy and worthwhile. Such marketing effort would in its turn increase the reputation and awareness of the public library service in a proper manner.
Any bookseller will tell you that these academic publishers are amenable to sensible negotiation over these matters. It might not be so silly to hire someone from Blackwells or Foyles to conduct the discussion.
Posted by Tim Coates at April 14, 2007 8:48 AM