Marketing Today’s Academic Library – available today

ALA sent me ten complimentary copies of my book this weekend. I read it on Saturday and it was strange—it was like reading someone else’s book. The original manuscript was finished in September, so it’s been a while. I wish I had worked just a little faster so that I could have had a chance to sell a few copies at ACRL, but that’s how it goes.

I really have to thank ALA Editions, particularly Laura Pelehach, for taking a risk on me. I have not always shared the most popular views of our profession and people look at me strange whenever I talk about things like need states, psychodemographics, coolhunting, recall, and permission marketing; this book will probably confuse them even more. Thanks to J. Michael Jeffers for helping me down the home stretch. Tara Patterson and Dottie Hunt were also immensely helpful, and I addressed them in the acknowledgments. Thanks to Del Ross for a kind Foreword—I only stay at Crowne Plaze Hotels when I attend library conferences! Oh and Jane Jerrard did an excellent job of stitching it all together.

I am very grateful that ALA didn’t pressure me to write a 2.0 or social technology book. It would have been a disaster. While those elements are included in the text, the scope is much wider. I worked (struggled) on and off for 2 years on this project. It is very personal. Writing a book is very draining. You feel vulnerable—or at least I do. I spent so many mornings up at 4am gulping down Jone’s Soda, trying to get the words right. This book is really my personal handbook, my personal approach. I feel like I am in a defensive position now, waiting for all the bad reviews to come in. (I’m sure the annoyed librarian will hate it.) Oh and just a note, if you’re looking for a nice cookie-cutter, paint-by-numbers approach to marketing, this isn’t the book for you. In fact, in many ways it isn’t a marketing book at all, but a vision for public service. Here is the final paragraph that really encapsulates the spirit:

“The academic library can become a place for experiences. It is not just for research and reflection, but also for creation, collaboration, design, and display. The library functions as a workshop, a gallery, a museum, a canvas, a stage, a lecture hall, a platform, a case study, and a showcase of student work. The future of libraries isn’t simply about digitizing all of our collections, but rather, it is about providing, encouraging, and staging new types of learning encounters. Instead of using marketing to try to persuade students to use our services, the library becomes the natural setting for academic activities--an environment where scholarship happens.”

So there it is. I won’t hype the book anymore on this blog, but I will say that Chapter 6 (Building Relationships) is probably my favorite one overall; it is the most personal and probably the one that stretches out the furthest from the traditional librarian mindset. I am looking forward to going to UCSB and experimenting more fully with the techniques and approaches described in the book. Georgia Tech was a great testing ground for experimentation, but the real test will occur over the next few years out there when I get the opportunity to guide my own communications program. In closing, the book reads a lot like my blog, so if you like the stuff you see here, you’ll probably enjoy the book too. I actually miss not working on it anymore. I feel like I still had another 2 or 3 chapters in me—perhaps for the second edition?

Contrary to what it says on the ALA site, the book is actually 171 pages, not 136.

Comments

[Jennie]

Congratulations Brian - I'm looking forward to reading this!

[Rebecca]

Congratulations. I look forward to reading your book. How are you marketing it? You could send a copy to your state library association journal for review. Many craft bloggers have "contests" and offer their publications to the person who makes the best comment on their blog regarding the topic, i.e., marketing the library. They leave comments open a week or two and sometimes receive 10, 20, or even 100s of comments if the prize is right (Pioneer Woman gave away a Canon Rebel Xti when she got a new Canon, so topping a prize like that is difficult.)

[Brian Mathews]

@Jennie, yeah, I'd be curious to hear your feedback. I believe I gave your name to ALA to consider sending a review copy. Not sure how that works.

@Rebecca. Thanks. I am going to let ALA market the book first and see how that goes. There are only 1000 copies, so not like it can ever be a bestseller. I will probably avoid hype via my blog-- I try to focus on my current projects & ideas. If I do promote it, I will focus on foreign markets-- that's were the good ROI is to be found: Canada, Europe, Australia, India-- I love you!

[Katie Clark]

Congratulations! Though as I remember when you were finishing this, you certainly weren't sad to be done!

[Ken Liss]

Congrats, Brian. I look forward to reading and sharing and helping make your ideas and insights more ubiquitous.

[Clyde Smith]

I love it, marketers that don't want to market their own books!

Hey, you could just put a graphic of the book in the sidebar with a link through to the ALA page.

If it's worth reading, it's worth telling people about.

[Stephanie Willen Brown]

Congratulations, Brian! I like @clyde's suggestion -- it would be good if you hyped the book just a wee bit. Especially for people who read your blog posts about marketing and working with students and wonder "gosh, what else has this guy written that I might like to read?" :-)

[Cal Gough (Atlanta-Fulton Public Library)]

Brian - Have been meaning to write to congratulate you on your upcoming move to UCSB, and to say that while I'm happy for the fact that you are embarking on a new adventure, I'm sorry that Tech - and Atlanta - is losing you. Now, even more congrats are in order, with your book now out. Several things about that: good for you for having the courage to put out there in print your personal vision of library service; don't worry overmuch about the criticism. (Also, I'd urge you not to overinterpret any initial Resounding Silence about your book either: people will gradually find your book, cite it, etc., and you will hear about it in unexpected and mostly pleasant ways from now on.) No matter what reactions you get from reviewers, you'll be glad in years to come that you got this vision of yours out there to mingle with the others. Special thanks for laboring over the text to make sure you got it down as articulately and accurately as you could. (That brief excerpt in your blogpost is really well-written!) Gosh, I sure wish the public library arena had snagged your energy and intelligence and humility and commitment instead of academia, but Lord knows there's plenty of reforming that needs doing in both spheres. So best of luck with your new venue and your new book and PLEASE keep blogging - it's a pleasure to read the thoughts of someone so reflective and sensitive to a library USER's points of view and willing to explore the user's subjective experience of using libraries to try to make the library a more memorable and useful place to visit (either in person or virtually).

[Beatrice Pulliam]

Brian,

Your talk at Simmons was very inspiring and I look forward to reading your book (which is at a very affordable price point I must say -- just sayin' ). I've been thinking alot about your "what if there wasn't a reference desk..." question and substituting other service points in that idea for use in some upcoming brainstorming sessions, as well as thinking how we might pass the Medss here. :-)

Good luck in Cali. Cheers!