GovInfoDay: Cynthia Etkin from U.S. GPO

Library Roles in Facilitating Open Access to Government Information

• Federal Depository Library Program
• NIH Public Access Policy
• Transparency and Open Government Initiative - Pres. Obama's memorandum 1/21/09 - http://www.whitehouse.gov/open - http://recovery.gov/ - http://data.gov/
• Letter from Public Printer to Pres. Obama 3/9/09 - support for initiative, offering assistance to carry out through FDLP and Public Law 103-40
• Goals: FDsys as official federal govpub repository, Web2.0 functionality, public input into pending legislation, etc.

Marketing Government Information in Libraries

• Librarians are not generally good at marketing - we think statistics are marketing
• What is marketing?
• "...an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating and delivering value to customers and for manageing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders." - American Marketing Association, http://www.marketingpower.com
• ... NOT just promoting
• ... a strategy that ensures user needs continue to be met, and provides value to library users
• ... Product (what we provide or COULD provide) + position (what we want users to believe about libraries and staff) + promotion (increase awareness)
• Think about saying... "Members" and "Guests" instead of "users" or "patrons" or "customers" or "visitors"
• Environment: we're competing for funding, space & resources
• OCLC report 2008: "From Awareness to Funding":
• ... perceptions of vs. support of libraries
• ... "transformational" libraries more likely to get tax increase support than "informational" l ibraries
• ... should target marketing messages to different segments of voting public
• GPO Data Gathering for Marketing: 2007 Biennial Survey:
• ... 67% of FDLP libraries hadn't surveyed users about quality of depository services
• ... Though library staff are informed of new fedgov resources in many ways, the public is mainly informed through handouts and displays, some via events and articles.
• FDLP provides:
• ... materials to promote services and collections (posters, bookmarks, pamphlets, letterhead, graphics, PSAs)
• ... pocket cards in Spanish
• ... Vision/Values statement
• ... Feedback form "button" you can put on your website
• ... Marketing plan
• ... Radio spots to share with campus stations
• ... Videos - up on YouTube: "Easy as FDL: Free information, dedicated service, and limitless possibilities," "GPO takes to the streets" (asked people if they knew what a federal depository library was, what their favorite government publication was, and what they think of when they hear "library")
• Image: pyramid of collections, services, & communications = collaboration/flexibility to provide access to depository materials
• We want:
• ... your success stories
• ... tips about what works and doesn't work
• ... quantitative data (website usage, materials dispersed, collection usage changes)
• ... you to use AskGPO
• Developing a Library Partner Relations Program, will collect data for benchmarking success - working with OutSell consulting firm

Comment: It would be nice if the videos were customizable to our local libraries.

Comment: We can't fix all the ignorance that U.S. citizens have about their government :)

Question: Are the radio spots only suitable for campus stations, or also community radio? A: I haven't listened to them yet, but community stations would be fine.

Question: How does GPO foresee changing, in this changing library environment? A: Many of our policies are actually written as laws, so slow to change. Picking low-hanging fruit. Streamlining needs & offers (disposition).

Comment: I see a danger of libraries dropping out of the program, if GPO doesn't make radical changes. A: We've all been thinking about it - our hands are tied, and unfortunately it may take a mass dropout to change things. I can't tell you to lobby.

Comment: There would need to be a library consensus on needed changes. Last time (1998), the photocopier lobby nixed it. There are always some people in Congress who say we don't need the Congressional Record at all. A: At Tampa meeting, we asked "If you could change 1 or 2 things about Title 44, what would you change?"

Comment: If it's all online, what is left? Provide internet access to the public, and staff who understand the landscape/organization of government information. Unfortunately, libraries will probably stop hiring people to provide that expertise. In Wisconsin, the universities have a long tradition of serving the entire state. But northern Wisconsin does not have high-speed internet.

Cynthia: We're told "our collection isn't getting used." So we ask them, "are you promoting it?" But not always enough staff to do so.

Cynthia: We're waiting for a report on the minimum number of documents recommended per state, under various conditions.

Comment: I'm happy that I'm not needed to answer the simple questions anymore, but to still be there to help with the in-depth research questions.

Comment: There's still a role for trustworthy, .gov information. Though patrons don't always know where the information is from - they think it's from Google.

Cynthia: The courts are starting to accept documents beyond just the media and government.

Cynthia: Version control is going to be built into the online repository system. The URL will go to the agency website, unless it changes, when it will revert to the archived copy.

WAPL - "One Book, One Community" Programs: the Do's and Don'ts

A panel discussion on several examples of community reads programs, which are growing in popularity.

Meg Shriver Appleton PL on organizing

• There were some key choices for the Fox Cities Community Read
• this was the 3rd year of community read in Appleton, and the 2d as a multi-library effort
• the most effective thing was partnering w/other libraries, bookstores & community groups
• selected a title in partnership with other libraries and organizations
  
• brought in the author to speak as the culminating
• have used the community read to focus on an issue
• APL buys hundreds of copies, using foundation funds
  

• Do:
• form partnerships
  
• Multiple libraries(Appleton, Neenah, Menasha, Kimberly-Little Chute, Kaukauna, UW-Fox) - allows choice of venues, cross-over by patrons - provides greater pool of funds from libraries
  
• Bookstores are good synergy for PR & sales, and can sometimes provide more economical access to author tours
• Businesses offer other partnership possibilities, such as catering for author reception, bus promotion
• select a title using wide representation to get community investment - last year the library partnered with newspaper, schools and bookstores to have a community vote on title -- this requires a lot of staff involvement to provide coordination, but it was popular and will likely do again
• take opportunity to discuss common issues --
  
• in 2008 Alice Hoffman was part of a larger book festival, creating lots of excitement, more partnerships and coss marketing opportunities
  
• in 2007 Nickel & Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich was foundation of Project Promise in partnership with community nonprofits and the media
  
• in 2005 Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson became foundation of community discussion about teen sexual assault, including a partnership with lots of schools, churches, community groups
  
• select book that allows for an author visit: it creates a pinnacle of the process, gives people the chance to discuss with the author
• use the ALA publication on planning a community read
• Don't
• Hesitate to do this!

Michael Kenney, Appleton PL, on marketing

• we're already starting process for next year
• marketing alone doesn't do it, the community read needs the expertise of librarians
• once author is selected, need to get word out, use available opportunities
• in planning process for 2007,
• brainstormed 30 titles from a broad-based selection group
• the group culled these down to five
• the local newspaper got enthusiastic pushing a vote
• vote nearly selected British author, wound up with Barbara Ehrenreich, who was initially too expensive
• the library made a proposal to Community Health Action Team of ThedaCare for funding -- they underwrote a large piece of the cost, but asked us to include other Fox Cities libraries
• having larger base, larger team created more marketing opportunities
• the community read grew into Project Promise, ongoing coalition effort to deal with poverty issues
• important to establish good working relationship with local press [examples presented of press coverage in local media]
• giant replica of book covers, t-shirts with cover for staff, are godd devices
  

• marketing
• need to identify goals for libraries, potential audience
• increases library exposure and profile, with corollary benefits

Ellen Connor, Manawa PL, small library program

• most ever spent was $900
• only pick Wisconsin authors -- available & affordable
• 1st book was Population 485
• in a small community, don't need big committee, not a lot of issues and politics, whole library staff can read the title -- and should
  
• Michael Perry's photo motivated people to read -- women liked his looks, men liked that he wore flannel
  
• bought copies of book for all firefighters & EMT
• timetable for the read: unveil book in December, give people until March to read, then author appears
• this is hard, hard work: you need to talk to every patron and try to persuade them to read the book -- can be exhausting, but is effective
• the staff first agrees on the book, because every staff person needs to read and promote
• nonfiction is more marketable to men, who often hesitate to read fiction
• library system support & graphic arts are key to holding down cost of PR materials
• buys 10-15 copies, minimal processing
  
• talk it up everywhere -- meetings, service clubs, posters in grocery stores
• get high school English teachers to give kids extra credit for reading the book
• pick your date carefully in a small town: one basketball game can put you out of business
• fortunate to have benefactor who underwrites programs, asks bank to pay for ads

Jessica MacPhail, Racine PL, another large library model

• hardest thing is to choose the book
• for the first book, met with literacy council, Hispanic council; book had to be in paperback, large print, audiobook, and in Spanish
• for first book, had radio interview rather than author appearance
• for second book, did baseball book to coincide with Miller Park opening --had contest to find errors in Shoeless Joe
• for third book, Fist Stick Knife Gun -- community supported ideas for nonviolent conflict resolution, encourage kids to express concerns
• for fourth book, tried for theme, got Holocaust survivor Motherland
• fifth book, Nickel & Dimed, support from business & social service agencies
• Seed Folks - partnership with gardeners
• in each case, there are natural coalitions to build around the title -- communities of interest
• structure of choosing books is loose, depending on who shows up, only current criteria are
• must be in paperback
• must be "discussionable"
• they buy 25 copies
• have experimented used BookCrossing for distribution of some copies
  

WAAL 2008: User Surveys: Cost-effective Marketing Strategies

• Larry Duerr and Dolores Skowronek, Alverno College

Cost-effective Marketing Strategies

• Both of us are on campus library marketing committee
• Previous committee members were more interested in promoting internally through bulletin boards, etc.
• International Encyclopedia of Information and Library Science: "Marketing represents an organized way of offering library services cost-effectively and efficiently, baesd upon user interests, communication methods, imaginative design of service and products, and feedback that improves what the library is doing."
• Rather than pulling an idea out of a hat and saying, "let's try this" - we needed data on our users
• Last time we'd gathered data like this was 10 years ago
• Info we wanted to gather: frequency of library use, demographics, reality of student tech proficiency vs. their self-assessment, satisfaction level with library

Data gathering & statistical analysis

• Probability sampling - better option but requires more understanding of statistics, and more funds - everyone has same chance of being surveyed - yields statistically measurable results
• Non-probability sampling - tends to be biased and not representative of whole population - not generalizable - convenience sampling (try to get as many people as possible who come into library on certain day/time to take survey) - handy when you aren't sure if there's a problem or not
• Most librarians don't have the research methodology skills to do probability sampling
• We had both taken a research methods class, but had never used in practice - we chose non-probability sampling
• Used same categories in our demographic survey questions, as those used by college - could then compare
• Educational institutions have tons of data on students - very helpful
• Attempted to minimize bias when distributing surveys - handed out to absolutely everyone who passed by, whether or not we knew if they were students
• Larger the sample size, the better - our goal was 331 (minimum sample size for our overall study body, if we'd used probability sampling)
• You're welcome to use our survey questions - contact us

Our questions + results

• We adopted a definition of a non-user: "somebody who uses the library once a year or less" - turned out that it wasn't good definition - very few people fit into that category - but it was good that we didn't seem to have the problem of non-use that we suspected
• Identify and separate 1st-year students, because of course they didn't use library last year...
• When analyze open-ended questions, need to go through "open coding" process - group into categories and assigned code to enter into analysis software - librarians are good at this!
• Try to reduce bias by having more than one person work on open coding, separately
• SPSS is great qualitative analysis software, but not intuitive - seek someone out with know-how
• 377 usable surveys, 322 were students, 8 nonusable, 124 chose not to answer survey [a data point most people don't collect]
• Happy to get small differences in percentage between our sample, and overall population by year in school, etc.
• Grad students - higher non-use of physical facility, but higher use of website; don't necessarily know why
• "Liked best about the library?" - generating talking points we can use with the administration - why have a library, why continue to staff it - leverage value-added component - high = library staff, quiet space
• "Liked least?" - too few computers (we had anecdotal evidence about this, but now real data to use in requests for funding); too few hours (have made some changes)
• "Where do you go first?" - internet (no surprise, not trying to compete there); library building 21%; library website; library databases

What changes have we made?

• 1st/2nd year students don't use website - more focus by Librarians in Residence, and tutorial videos
• Students say staff are friendly and easy to work with - confidence for librarians to serve on more curriculum committees, extend staff outside the building
• Want more computers - budget request, opened nearby computer lab for drop-ins from 12-1pm during week
• Focus group: more classes in how to do research - offering more workshops on APA citation format - got 5 people at each of 3 workshops [hmmm... not sure this is the right tactic]
• Low use of web2.0 (blogs, wikis, rss) - continuing workshops on learning technologies, want to purchase Captivate license
• High use of Facebook - created page, want to create link from website - communicating resources/services/events - gray area about crossing the line into student online communities - but we know it's being used, so good place to spend library time
• Faculty focus groups: expect library to keep them informed about new technologies and research

Future

• Do more frequent surveys - not wait 10 years between
• Target grad students
• Short-term goals: more laptops, more embedded librarians for specific courses - "Librarian in Residence," promote website to freshmen
• Long-term: new library building 4-5 years (ours is from 1950's) - get librarians involved, include Information Commons; create information literacy general education course taught by librarians (ACRL IL competencies); staff training - using technology

Lessons learned

• Find and use experts on campus (ex: SPSS experts)
• Redefine non-user = someone who uses library once a semester or less
• Verify college data - use master set/codes, rather than info on the open web which might not match (oops!)
• Detailed timelines would have been more helpful - tried to go back to analyze data after a semester, had lost momentum - this is common - loss of morale for staff as well as users who have answered survey
• Offered online survey version after refused paper survey - not many takers - has to be exactly the same
• Followed up survey with one focus group with students, one with faculty - wanted more, but very hard to schedule - good information - wanted to know what librarians "really do"
• Need IRB approval, admin buy-in, above-board
• Without funds for outside expert consultant, wanted to become good researchers - wonderful experience - will understand the literature better now - positive change - total cost was under $600

Questions/comments

• Let users know results? Haven't yet much; some info in annual report. Will make formal report to admin. Notepad at next "Institute" event where faculty meet - giveaway with facts about library.
• Memorial Library at UW-Madison did a "know your librarian" display - what they do when they are and aren't on the job
• Non-usable surveys? Filled out front and not back of survey.
• Amanda's reaction: Yay! Assessment as part of marketing!

WLA 2007: Non-Profit Marketing: What I Should Know about Marketing That My Mother Wouldn't Tell Me

At every conference, I seek out those sessions related to assessment, quality improvement, and promotion, because I'm the marketing coordinator for my library, and I serve on the campus-wide library marketing committee for the UW-Madison. I've also been toying with the idea of pursuing an MBA at some point, with a focus on marketing. Sometimes, I come away thinking "I could have taught that," but this time I definitely came away with new concepts.

I love it when non-librarians are invited to present at library conferences, because we really can benefit from others' expertise and perspectives. "Non-Profit Marketing" was presented by Don McCartney, a Senior Lecturer of Business Administation at UW-Green Bay, who has some experience working with libraries on marketing issues.

"Marketing is manipulative... in a good way!"

McCartney started out by asking the question, "How many of you have seen an ad?" - of course, that meant everyone in the room. He followed with, "And how many of you have bought everything you've ever seen advertised?" - clearly, no one does this. His conclusion is that yes, advertising is manipulative, but clearly it doesn't force us to do things that we don't want to do. And if it facilitates something good, like using the library, then that's a good kind of manipulation!

In order to bring together libraries and their potential users, both the library and the user must be able to communicate - after all, you can't utilize a service to meet a need if you don't know that service exists, or if you don't know you can get that service from the library. That's where marketing comes in.

"So... what is the value of libraries?" Attendees replied:

• They're free (McCartney: yeah, but a lot of things are free and I may or may not value them)
• They provide access to information
• Librarians provide help to find/get information
• We provide programming to children and adults - for literacy, enrichment, education, pleasure, fun

McCartney pointed out that one danger of the "virtual library" is that without a social aspect, how much affinity can a user develop for you? I'd posit that one solution is to build social networking technologies into your online space, to allow for personalization to each user's interests, interactivity with library staff, and development of communities.

Discussing market segmentation, McCartney suggested that it's also possible to oversegment, which leads to redundancy and increased costs. And the #1 market segment that you should be concerned with, he said, are your internal clients - your employees.

Keep records of who uses which resources and services, and then *use that information.* The "80/20 rule" says that 80% of your time is spent on 20% of your users, and 80% of your 'profits' are derived from 20% of your users. With limited staff time and money, you should prioritize those market segments that are your primary users. This doesn't address the issue of expanding one's overall market - but Jill Stover's presentation on "Taking the Non out of Non-User" is a perfect complement to McCartney's session. I'm also not yet clear on how to translate 'profits' for a state university library which receives its collection funds from the overall UW-Madison budget, and its overhead funds (facilities, staff) from the College of Engineering.

A 1995 study published in the Journal of Marketing, concerning social identification and its correlation with museum membership, provided McCartney an opportunity to introduce a good number of important marketing terms, including: identification, social identity, self-concept, and organization. Other terms he helpfully defined: publics, awareness, latent readiness, and triggering.

This study provided a number of insights into why members felt a strong sense of "belonging" to a museum, that can help us to understand (mainly, public) library users:

• The perception of prestige (not the same as elitism)
• Tenure of membership (the longer you're a member, the closer you feel to the institution)
• Correlation between expectations of membership, and reality
• Frequency of contact (all kinds)

Participation in other, similar organizations, decreased the overall sense of identification. And, the more highly educated members were, the more organizations they tended to participate in. That was one piece of bad news.

McCartney suggested that library mission statements are an important means by which to promote the intangible values that are so important to a sense of belonging. These statements should be visible to staff on a daily basis, and also shared with users. Say, "This is why we exist, this is why we're here."

Another study concluded that only 7% of the population will ever become actively engaged in non-profit organizations - and so many organizations are competing for the same small group of members (and source of funds). This was another piece of bad news.

Knowledge of what's at stake without your members' support can build association with your organization. You need to remind your members why they got involved, tell them why they're important to you, and thank them. Because you want to be one of the organizations that they stick with over the years.

Seeing red

It was a little like herding cats, but eventually we all stood together long enough to smile for the Campaign for Wisconsin Libraries photo shoot in the Regency Suites atrium Wednesday afternoon.


Hey, the t-shirts were free, we librarians know a good marketing strategy when we see one and, well, it was happy hour.