Creating the Customer-Driven Library: Building on the Bookstore Model - Softcover

Woodward, Jeannette

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0838908888 ISBN 13: 9780838908884

Publisher: ALA Editions, 2004

Synopsis

How can libraries make a difference in their communities when customers choose to hang out in the spacious, well-stocked new bookstore instead? With the goal of helping libraries market their services using low-cost or no-cost techniques, Woodward shares practical lessons for any library's revitalization inspired by the success of mega bookstores. Bookstores have succeeded by focusing on the customer, and libraries need to take a page from this playbook. While keeping one eye on their mission-to broaden library use and increase relevance while serving community needs-libraries can improve customer service, looks, and functionality in ways that enhance its community mission. Use Creating the Customer-Driven Library to: Offer accessible, customer-friendly signs, catalogs, and interior spaces; Identify the unique needs of your library's community-then meet those needs; Create a step-by-step, customized promotion plan that communicates with your market; Find cost-effective ways to connect-from user-friendly Web sites to promotional brochures; Show customers what the library has to offer and entice them to give it a try; Libraries remain vitally important to the organizations and communities they serve. Using these outreach and marketing strategies, Woodward shows libraries how to "Become better than a bookstore," even without a hefty budget.

About this title

From Booklist

Why should nonprofit libraries look to for-profit bookstores as models of library service? A visit to a local large chain bookstore is likely to reveal an attractively decorated facility resembling a "nineteenth-century library, complete with imitation oak paneling and bookcases, leather chairs, and dark, gleaming library tables" and "a broad spectrum of customers strolling through the aisles or enjoying their espresso in the bookstore cafe," attending a children's story hour or book discussion group--the latter formerly in the purview of traditional public library service. Woodward, director of the Fremont County Library System in Wyoming offers a timely and thought-provoking analysis of the contemporary book superstore phenomenon in order to arrive at suggestions not only for improving library service but also for enhancing marketing and promotion techniques by taking cues from the customer-driven philosophies of bookstores. A welcome addition to any library administrator's personal collection, Woodward's excellent treatise on the library-bookstore dichotomy is recommended for all public and academic libraries and library consultants. Diana Kirby
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

"Libraries are focused not on making money but on making a difference... What we as librarians have to offer is indeed precious. Because it can make a difference to so many people, we must do a better job of spreading the word. That is what this book is all about."

Edition details

• Publisher: ALA Editions
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0838908888
• ISBN 13: 9780838908884
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 234