Internet Librarian 2010 #intlib10 pre-conference: Promoting Effective use of E-resources using E-tools by Barbie E. Keiser

This was my first year at Internet Librarian. I will post my feelings about my first conference, speaking as part of a panel at the conference, and failure. For now, these are my notes for Promoting the Effective Use of E-Resources by using E-Tools. We are getting heavily into our usage stats for our digital products and determining whether this database or resources needs to be cut, or needs more promotion. This session answered both sides of that question.

The Program/Michael Porter Approach to Marketing

I really enjoyed this program since it promotes marketing to a specific group of people rather than a spread out approach, shotgun style. Find and identify the specific target group, develop service and promotion around it, and then measure the full impact of the program.

It begins with the assessment process. The thinking behind this presentation takes a business-like approach to rolling out a new service. 


Establish an information need, estimate size of market, identify competition, can you meet the need now? 


She brought up Michael Porter's Five Forces that affect the marketplace: New Entrants into the market, suppliers, buyers, substitutes, and Industry Competitors. I found this approach very refreshing. 


When I simplify this question, I would wonder if I should bother with a library database when Google will do. Some researchers will even pay to get the information that is already available through the library because they don't know about it. Genealogy research comes to mind, people can Google their ancestry, pay for a subscription at Ancestry.com or use the library resources that provides all that and more. The introduction of the competition in this was fascinating and really changed the way I am thinking about marketing e-resources.

Need to identify your user base, who are they, what drives them, what forces them, what are the barriers, what are all the critical factors?

Porter's four P's: product, Place, Price, Promotion. There was a great emphasis on Porter's works, should pick it up. If product is not new, how do you repackage as if it is? People have short attention spans, need to re-introduce and re-package current services.

Heavy emphasis was placed on focus groups, asking them what they expect of your service, what products and services are currently available, do people even know about it, are you aware what others offer.

(As a side note of strategically marketing services, lots of comments from librarians on how they needed a certain database, but project was scrapped to get eBooks. I wonder if that is a director overreacting to a trend or librarians unaware of their market?)

Pull marketing ideas from what we are doing now

Libraries need to find new ways to promote services, examples given were product of the month, giveaway of products, get and giveaway freebies. Think of marketing like a sales promotion, tie everything into that. Lower the barrier to access for a limited period of time to encourage usage, same as a sale. One of the participants mentioned that libraries do this during their Summer Reading Programs. Another thought is asking why are you promoting it? Yes get new users, higher stats, what's the goal. What does this promotion say about me?

Need to use these skills to push a message, but can also allow message to be pulled, what users define us as, and also participatory, engaged patrons. There are different methods to accomplish any one of the three.

Next part covered social networks available. Overall, this segment was a rehash of social networking sites and which one works best for each type of marketing and promotion. This segment was a bit more advanced and I think it would take a good amount of critical analysis to get this part right. Broadcast media equals lower engagement; Networks/Blogs equals higher engagement. Push messaging versus dialogue, this segways into a general approach of library branding and service delivery. When is it a good time to use a blog, wiki, newsletter, tutorial, podcast, Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, giveaways, RSS feeds and more? 


Libraries should develop a marketing campaign design worksheet. Needs and benefits, messages, platforms, vehicles, frequency and strategy, partners and personal dates, measures and more all affect that message. A parting thought, people don't friend libraries, people friend people, we may need to change approach in library marketing to further embed ourselves. Not a library, but a librarian is a more human approach. Funny that most libraries that have social networks have maybe one or two people work on them, and also have their own account. Why not use personal accounts to push?

Library Bandwidth in Terms of Gigabytes

by xeni (contact)

I attended the meeting for CENIC's project to provide high speed fiber for California's Central Valley last week. When completed, this project will provide high bandwidth fiber pipe from Kern County (Bakersfield) up to Colusa County. The Central Valley is California's most rural and poorest area, encompassing over 500 miles with a population of over 6.2 million. This is an often neglected part of California. A largely agricultural area, so it is no wonder that this area doesn't have fast bandwidth.


CENIC approached many different partners earlier this year when they submitted an ARRA grant to get high speed. In this area, we refer to bandwidth in megabytes if we are lucky, but it seems soon, we will be speaking in terms of gigabytes.


It's an ambitious program that has identified anchor institutions receiving one Gigabyte per second download speeds. Our Visalia branch library will be an anchor institute, one of 20 headquarter libraries chosen in this project. Currently, the library has 5mbps download times, but with this new fiber coming through, there is the potential to have 1 GBPS, almost 1000 times more bandwidth.


This is the second stimulus grant in which we will benefit. The first from USDA for library construction. This one will be a group project involving schools, public safety, universities, and public libraries. We are one of many organizations, in particular public libraries, that are receiving stimulus grants for broadband. In order to track the progress of these awards, you can go to the United States Department of Agriculture Utilities Page to track grant awards or to the Broadband USA page to see various broadband and Public Computer Center grants.


The grant intends to accomplish the following:
"According to a June 2009 report by the Public Policy Institute of California, Internet and broadband use has increased in all regions of California except for the Central Valley, where 49 percent of households cannot access high-speed service. Current broadband infrastructure in the region is largely inadequate to meet the needs of local community anchor institutions. In response to this situation, Central Valley Independent Network (CVIN), along with its project partner, Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC), intends to deploy a 1,371-mile fiber backbone network through 18 Central Valley counties. The network, consisting of 720 newly constructed miles of fiber and the leasing of 164 miles of dark fiber, will provide Internet backbone service to Amador, Calaveras, Colusa, El Dorado, Fresno, Kings, Kern, Mariposa, Merced, Madera, Nevada, Placer, San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Sutter, Tuolumne, Tulare, and Yuba counties. In addition, the project will construct 12 new wireless nodes in order to deploy WiMax last-mile service to the rural portions of Fresno, Tulare, Kings, and Kern Counties."


Further, the FCC will fast track these sorts of projects and allow schools and libraries to borrow pipe. Even though we have an anchor institution in Tulare County, we have 15 libraries that could also use high bandwidth fiber. With the many anchor stations in the county, we could tap into four and possibly six other locations, vastly improving service. In fact, this project is scheduled for completion in October of 2012, just two years away. This is the kind of service desperately needed in this rural part of the country. I wrote about bandwidth choking late last year and how that can affect new features and services from libraries. This kind of project can unlock so many doors and provides so much potential. I couldn't believe my ears when Cenic spoke of a one gigabyte pipe and I can hardly contain my excitement at the possibility of having this amount of bandwidth.

Libraries need to put content online

                Uris Library Stacks
            Originally uploaded by eflon

Libraries are nowhere near a future where everything is online. Books and information will stay in print for many, many years to come, but we need to position ourselves to not just provide services online (such as marketing through social networking sites, or online reference), but start providing content online, whether as a digital distribution center for e-books, or by providing our own content that is easy to access. 


My first foray into e-books increased my reading habits. My library didn't have a large budget and we had to be very efficient. When I was the collection development librarian, the director wanted Science Fiction titles from LOCUS (he circled what he wanted), but they never circulated.


When I became the director, I ran into a dilemma, there were books I wanted to read, but I couldn't justify the costs if it was just for me. However, when an opportunity came to subscribe to the largest e-book consortium in the state, I jumped at the chance. It was 20,000 e-books for only $20,000, one dollar per book. By doing that, I opened up the possibility of so many more books for our patrons at a low  cost (that was equal to one fifth of our entire print collection added immediately), and for myself, I now had far greater diversity and selection. Since then, I have always been excited about e-books and about what they can do.


Vendors like Overdrive, Netlibrary, and MyILibrary all provide e-books and e-audiobooks online through library websites. Libraries pay for this content so that the information can be freely accessed by the public.


Overdrive continues to make steps into the library's future. The recent announcement that they will make e-book content directly downloadable to smart phones (http://www.teleread.com/2010/05/19/overdrive-to-release-ebook-reading-applications/) (just like they already do with audiobooks) demonstrates a strategy that is in line with the library's future as it connects online content with a mobile delivery system.


E-books evolving
This is the game changer. If all e-reader devices, from iPod touches, iPads to Kindles, can download material from the library it would be a different world. A free book option provided by libraries would change how we view e-readers. There will be more devices that can read e-books that aren't just for e-books. With so many ways to read a book, having a free option would be wonderful. Furthermore, librarians will need to learn more about these devices as they are multiplying like rabbits. One Library Journal Editor commented at BEA:

"affordable ereaders are going to drive you all crazy" -- B&T's Coe to librarians, on future of collection development for devices #dod10                                   
less than a minute ago via Twitter for iPhone                                                                                   Josh Hadro
Hadro

We also need more training in this area and to be able to support this technology. At BEA:


Teleread: BEA: Tomorrow’s Library in the World of Digits
SNIP
Libraries are becoming “IT” services for consumers and they need to train their own people better.
END SNIP


It's dissapointing that libraries aren't considered partners with publishers and vendors in ebook distribution. This excellent article explains where libraries need to be in regard to ebooks.


Librarians to Ebook Creators and Sellers: Library Model Needed (Library Journal)


SNIP

In order for us to help you sell and promote your e-books, we need you to sell or license them to us in a manner that works with our business model.
-      Provide for electronic check-out to customers similar to how we lend hard copy items.
-      Offer popular titles at reasonable prices.
-      Provide e-books in standard format with standard digital rights management.
-      Offer them to individual libraries and allow libraries to pool resources by selling to groups and consortia.



END SNIP


Many are concerned about the content delivery going through library vendors instead of through the library. The library currently subscribes to databases that are not housed in the library, but require librarian navigation and troubleshooting. That content still serves the public and tax dollars support it so that everyone can have equal access. That's the basic model of librarianship. We pool community resources to better the community by providing services and access to content, not necessarily providing the content ourselves.


Destroy your microfilm machine, libraries provide digital content
Many libraries house history collections and microfilmed newspapers. There should be a major push to digitize which will bolster library collections. Part of libraries continued relevance online. The library is one of the few places that collection this type of resource, particularly local in nature. Publishing our own resources as well as partnering with local history centers to digitize their materials should be the next steps in library service evolution.


Much of my frustration is the need to destroy microfilm machines in libraries. These expensive tedious machines represent such an anachronism today. You can sit down on a computer and look at a historical digitized newspaper which can take minutes for a patron or a librarian to look up, or you can scroll through reams of microfilm for hours fruitlessly.


Digitization projects are very expensive, so bringing up this point seems indelicate, but I get frustrated at many librarians who would simply say, "Sounds great, if we could afford it." I think it is important enough to place some focus upon it. In California, there are two good online repositories for digital collections, Online Archive of California and California Newspaper Project. Both of these agencies are great at organizing information and providing permanent access to collections. There are also private library vendors that can perform the same amount of work with assurances that the items will be properly formatted for the future. I think this needs to be more of a priority for libraries to make this content easy to access and better preserved.


What's next?
What other content can we provide online and how can we make that content easy to use. Not just online, but downloadable to devices. If an iPad can read it, highlight, and edit this content, it becomes infinitely more useful for future generations. Instead of researchers having countless photocopies and clipping, they can have access to everything through one device and be able to replicate that content if necessary. That cannot happen, however, if that information isn't digitized and preserved and formatted in a way that it can be accessed in the future.

California Libraries Article on USDA Grants

My article for the May California Libraries Newsletter is now up. I discuss all the nuts and bolts on how our library applied and received a grant to renovate two of our branch libraries and purchased one book machine. If you have rural communities in your library system, you might consider reviewing the article and applying to the USDA. They have Community Facility Funds set aside just for libraries and the Undersecretary of the USDA is making a point of getting the word out. Take a look: Creative Fund Finding: USDA Grants for Libraries