Finally, an article in a newspaper that challenges the stereotypes of librarians:
“When most people think of a library, they picture books, study tables, and magazine racks. When they think of librarians, they visualize a stern, old woman with glasses who lives alone with 50 cats.”
“But today’s libraries break this stereotype. They are fun, vibrant places with outgoing librarians who have their own stories to tell.”
These should outnumber “hair-in-bun” articles 4 to 1. If not, we are not doing our job in marketing ourselves.
Regardless of the hair-in-bun ration
We are not doing our job in marketing ourselves.
Marketing Library Staff, not Collections
Far to often, the library management markets the library’s collection, rather than the staff. But what makes libraries run well is a good staff- otherwise, there would oly be a pile of books on the floor. But because of lack of self esteem, a fear of grandstanding, a desire to cut down others to our own level, jealousy, a fear of playing favorites, many library directors refuse to have library staff marketed as the interesting people they are. It is far easier to announce the number of books in the collection rather than the number of degrees held by the staff; the special collections in local history, rather than promote the professional genealogical library staff; far easier to show a bulletin board about how the Internet works, rather than how the staff work flows in a good stream when a book is added to the library, from selection to purchase to cataloging to book preparation to being placed on the reading shelf to recommended to the patron.
When’s the last time you had a display of favorite books with reviews by the library staff, including the technical staff in the back who are never seen by the public? when is the last time you had a photo and display for the employee of the month? If MacDee’s can do it month after month, why can’t you? Oh, yes, I forgot. We’ve never done that before. It’s unprofessional to advertise people, just the corporation. Besides, other staff might get jealous. Yada yada yada.
Besides, it’s easier to promote Woman’s history month, than it is to promote women librarians. When is the last time you had a “librarian of the month” (Dewey, Ranganathan, Sears, etc.) bulletin board, or seen one outside a library school?
Next, we will talk about supporting library staff with resources and time for writing and research and library presentations at conferences, but that will only happen after library managers promote librarians, not library collections.
Re:Marketing Library Staff, not Collections
Hear, hear!!
Re:Marketing Library Staff, not Collections
Rack him!
I must add, though, that the possible level of marketing of a library’s staff may depend on the type of library, and whether the library is part of a larger organization or a completely separate entity. Initially, when I read this story, I thought that this pertained primarily to public libraries. My background is in special libraries. These libraries tend to not be as “public” and have niche user gropus. How can librarians (and library staff) in special library settings better market ourselves? Considering the narrower focus of the users, would marketing be as necessary in the special library setting?
I did not forget about academic libraries and librarians. In a smaller setting (for example, a single library serving a small college campus and population), I would imagine that marketing would be easier. On the other end of the spectrum are the large universities, with systems of campus libraries. In these instances, I don’t think that the problem would be marketing the libraries and librarians to the public as it would be those entities marketing themselves to… well… themselves.
Stereotype sez who?
Well, I’m no stereotypical librarian; I don’t have anywhere near 50 cats!
Re:Stereotype sez who?
Yes, but do you knit?
Re:Marketing Library Staff, not Collections
while i was still getting my MLIS, i wondered who the “best” librarians were in my part of the world. there was nothing on the internet, and there was hardly anything on the shelves. eventually, i found out that there was an annual award for “outstanding librarians,” but even those giving the award–or even the library associations–didn’t have complete files. that’s why i came up with my own “site” for them: Librarians–Awardees. stereotypes will persist if we shush ourselves. and users and non-users are not going to realize that we’re important if we don’t show them that we are.