To Market, To Market

To market, to market to find a fat pig! You probably remember that nursery rhyme line from your childhood. In that happy story, you are off to the store. Today, market means many different things, hardly ever the place to buy groceries. We worry constantly about the ups and downs of the stock market. In the library world, however, to market or marketing has become a very popular buzzword.

How do we tell people that we are the best deal in town? In other words, how do we market the library, so people will know all the great and diverse things a library has to offer. Our library commission recently held focus groups at both the Bill and Gales Ferry Libraries. People from the community were invited to share their ideas for library services. The library welcomes their input and will use some of the suggestions to improve our service. The greatest information that came from the focus groups, however, was how little people knew about the services we already offer. People suggested we do a newsletter. We have been doing a newsletter quarterly for over twenty years. An e-mail newsletter was suggested. We also have one of those. We should do workshops to showcase our on line data bases. We scheduled four a year ago and no one came.

Maybe our problem is we market in the newsletter or on the web site that people don't know we have. Although all of our programs are also published in the local Thames River Times. They are also advertised in the library and in The Day and Norwich Bulletin.

I know we could do a better job of marketing. I also know that people don't look for things until they need them. That is why library circulation is up in these troubled economic times. Do you look for a new job when you have a good one? Do you look for internet access when you have a blackberry? Right now, I think the economy is doing our marketing for us. Hopefully the people who need us now will realize what a good deal they have and continue to use the library when they no longer "need" us.