13th Conference on Professional Information Resources

Autor: Zuzana Helinsky, zh Consulting, Sweden

Fulltext

Abstract:

For marketing we need TIME. We do know what we should be doing, we also have some brilliant ideas, but somehow we are overloaded with daily work, so we have trouble finding time for marketing. Also who else could market the library’s electronic resources? We are the ones who have the knowledge and the understanding, but we think we HAVE NO TIME for marketing. We are very busy I know, but do we really need to do everything? Eliminate some routines, and make your colleagues do it as well. We need all our colleagues to accept the concept, and to contribute actively to direct or indirect marketing. We all need to be marketers. Customers Keep an eye on the less satisfied clients/users. We learn more from these, to find the right products and services, then from our nice friends, who are satisfied and happy with our services and products Our internal and external surroundings are changing all the time. Threats become Opportunities, Weaknesses became Strengths or the other way around. (Google could be a Threat or Opportunity). For that reason we need to have routines for marketing and to assess the process on a regular basis. Also while doing analysis, be almost brutal honest with yourself and your institution - do not analyse how you want to have your library or how it should be, BUT HOW IT IS NOW - THE REALITY. Combine electronic and manually done marketing Some other thought about marketing Marketing takes time and you can’t expect results over a night Repeating the marketing - Marketing must be repeated and repeated and when we almost hate the message we are communicating that’s when our both internal and external customers finally start to listen to us. Marketing is fun! Marketing is fun and gives us power to change our situation. Involve vendors - There is also a possibility to involve vendors and let them help us in our marketing. Some libraries are encouraging Vendor’s workshops and see this as marketing the library Scientists from yesterday and the new ones: We need even more visibility There is a big difference. People are so used now to searching and using the university website and of course Google and others! We do need change the belief that other people will automatically become interested in the library world. But we can make them interested. Our product and services are extremely good and are used on a very widely, actually they are indispensable There are ways to do marketing, we just need to sew it together, which we will, if only we sharpen our saws! (find the time )

About author:

Zuzana Helinsky is a director of zh Consulting a company specialising in services to the publishing and library community. She is a qualified librarian, with wide international business experience. For the last 20 years she has had a variety of jobs providing services to libraries around the world. Zuzana speaks regularly at international conferences and lectures for seminars and business classes. She was Director of Publisher Relations for Prenax Global, the international and innovative subscription management company. From the mid 90’s she was Manager of International Business for BTJ, Sweden’s largest library service company. In the mid 80’s she created and managed BTJ’s subscription service, which had grown to 20 million dollars. Arriving in Sweden from the Czech Republic in 1969, she gained a degree in Philology and History at Lund University and has a Masters Degree in Library and Information Science from Boras Bibliotekshogskola. She worked for several years in a variety of posts in the serials department at the University of Lund. Zuzana’s mother tongue is Czech and she is also fluent in Russian, Swedish and English. She is a member of the Editorial Board of Serials – the journal of the United Kingdom Serials Group

Author: Ludmila Mládková, University of Economics, Czech Republic

Author: Anna Diačiková, Chemosvit a.s., Slovakia / SNK, Slovakia (Marketing Manager for Slovak Libraries)

Author: Pavel Kocourek, INCAD, Czech Republic

Author: Anežka Compelová, MCR, s.r.o., Slovak Republic

Author: Jan Mottl, AiP Safe s.r.o., Czech Republic