Mmm, the big one - library marketing in the age of Web 2.0. Well, firstly I was very interested not only to discover that LC had much more out there than I had realised but that Orkney libraries had discovered that there was little duplication between their fans on Twitter and their fans on facebook. This already goes some way to highlighting the difficulties posed by Web 2.0 marketing, namely that there are just so many options available. Ensuring your users know what is available or can stumble across it in places where they already are is a must. Thus one of the more interesting points of one of the slideshare presentations was the need not only to keep content up-to-date but to duplicate that content in multiple places.
This leads to another important point. Though duplicating content in several places can be seen as a way of time-saving one of the other points of importance in the slideshare presentations was the necessity of not underestimating the amount of staff time involved in marketing your library. Being aware of 2.0 technologies and developing awareness of new ones is only part of the issue. Much time needs to be spent carefully considering what the library is trying to achieve, which particular users it is trying to serve and how best this can be done. Then, having decided this appointing someone who will be responsible for implementing that strategy / strategies. Furthermore, the process does not stop at implementation, staff time is needed not only to ensure that information put out there is kept up-to-date but that interaction with users - PARTICIPATION - keeps it relevant and that new opportunities are not missed. It would seem to me there has been a lot of experimental exploration of these technologies, sometimes by libraries, but more notably amongst individual librarians in recent times. Whilst this is important I think ultimately the library has to have an institutional presence. In the days of subject librarians pages of individual librarians may have been more effective, but in reaching out to users I question if this is the way forward. Surely an individual web 2.o presence is more important for interaction amongst other professionals, some of whom may be geographically very far apart but who have common career concerns, interests etc.
Working in a library as big as the UL I am thus finding it difficult to blog about one tool / strategy that my library should adopt to promote its services. In order to have an effective marketing strategy and exploit web 2.0 opportunities I believe this has to be done very much with the authorisation of the librarian and in a concerted and organised fashion. Perhaps, in this respect, the strategy I would suggest is having a publicised strategy that all staff are aware of. As someone who works behind the scenes I am looking forward to exploring wikis later in the programme as this may be a technology I can exploit on the departmental intranet pages.
Image courtesy of bensheldon via Flickr CC
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