Creative Library Marketing and Publicity: Best Practices

Creative Library Marketing and Publicity: Best Practices shares the success of libraries of various sizes and types—small to large public, academic, and school libraries, systems, and organizations. Each best-practice scenario describes a library’s successful experience with marketing, branding, and promoting a library service or program, providing information about planning, actual promotion techniques, and evaluating the success of the plan or promotion methods. Most importantly, each include tips and best practices for readers. Many of these ideas and techniques are applicable across the board, so they will help you implement similar methods to promote your library services and programs and spark different and unique uses for these techniques. Strategies covered include:

1. Using constituents’ voices in outreach efforts
2. Building a social media presence
3. Crafting step-by-step marketing plans
4. Planning and implementing branding campaigns
5. Creating buzz with promotional videos
6. Using e-mail marketing in outreach
7. Marketing a new library space
8. Marketing on a shoestring budget

Drawing on the best practices, experience, and expertise of library personnel from public, academic, and school libraries, this volume brings together a variety of marketing plans and creative methods for promoting libraries and their programs and services to a twenty-first-century audience. All library employees should be able to take away something from these creative, successful efforts and apply tips, techniques, and best practice suggestions to their own library marketing efforts.

Robert J. Lackie,MLIS, MA,is Professor-Librarian and Department Chairperson for the Franklin F. Moore Library of Rider University. A frequent presenter at library, education, and technology conferences and meetings and published within various professional and scholarly works, Prof. Lackie has also co-written or co-edited three books, the latest entitled, Identity Theft: What You Need to Know [Kindle Edition] (Amazon Digital Services, Inc., 2014). For his teaching, writing, leadership, and service to the library profession, he has received several accolades, including the NJLA “2014 Public Relations Award—Tech Shoutout Category,” the ACRL/New Jersey Chapter “2011 Distinguished Service Award,” and the ALA “2006 Ken Haycock Award for Promoting Librarianship,” among others. For more details on Prof. Lackie’s publications, presentations, honors, or other information, please visit his directory page .
M. Sandra Wood, MLS, MBA, is Librarian Emerita, Penn State University Libraries, and a Fellow of the Medical Library Association. Ms. Wood is founding and current editor of Medical Reference Services Quarterly (in its 34th volume). She was a librarian for over thirty-five years at the George T. Harrell Library, Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, Pennsylvania State University, specializing in reference, education, and database services. Ms. Wood has written or edited more than 12 books, the latest two entitled Health Sciences Librarianship and Successful Library Fundraising: Best Practices (both with Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2014).