7 Things Library Customers Want NOW | Customer Service and Library Patrons

Free Patron Support Tips via Email – Sign up! 7 Things Library Customers Want NOW What attracts library customers to today’s libraries? The rise of mobile culture and the smart phone society brings a dynamic shift in expectations about how, when, and where to access information. Endless media streams, interactive news feeds, and autonomous research […]

Word of Mouth Marketing in Libraries – Info and Articles

Then and Now… Faberge Shampoo started it all with their famous commercial from the 1970s. Peggy Barber and Linda Wallace nail it in their new article, “The Power of Word-of-Mouth Marketing” in the November issue of American Libraries Magazine. We wrote a post called “Word of Mouth: The Best Form of Social Media” as part […]

RefStart: Virtual Reference + Social Media + Search =)

It’s official, RefStart is now LIVE! When Text a Librarian launched at ALA Midwinter in January earlier this year, we began hearing of the difficulties of managing all of the various virtual reference utilities, social networks, search engines and reference sites available. “I wish I could have everything in one place” became a current theme. […]

Library Marketing Tips, Part 4: a Tool, a Trick and a How-To

There are enough topics around the subject of library marketing for an entire blog. In fact, Jill Stover posted to her blog, Library Marketing, Thinking Outside the Book, for 3 years and it has some amazing ideas. That said, we’re on the final week of Library Marketing Tips, so we’ve decided to throw in a […]

Start Pages as Library Virtual Reference Tools: Pageflakes and iGoogle

We realize that start pages have been talked about in the library community for several years. Michael Stephens wrote a great piece on start pages about 18 months ago (originally written in Computers in Libraries in April of 2007) and Dr. Joyce Valenza recently wrote a piece called “netvibes enhanced!” on the School Library Journal […]

Library Marketing Tips, Part 3: Word of Mouth, the Best Form of Social Media

A new study shows 2/3 of marketers are using social media. Indeed, it is a very important element of promoting products and services, but what about getting back to the basics? Word of mouth is, and will always be, the best form of marketing. Qualified referrals from trusted sources play a vital role in customer […]

Social Networks, Web 2.0 Services and Collaboration Tools in the Library

I’m fascinated by the new report from Robin Hastings, Collaboration 2.0 and I haven’t even read it yet. My fascination with it is the fact, and I’m not really too surprised given the library industry, that a report has been written to help library managers make a case for utilizing social networks to increase outreach […]