Reader’s Roundup: Monographic Musings & Reference Reviews Column Editor: Corey Seeman (Director, Kresge Library Services, Ross School of Business, University of Michigan) <cseeman@umich.edu> Twitter @cseeman Column Editor’s Note: So … it’s the holidays and the new year. We know that because the students are finishing up exams, final projects and the campus is getting quieter than normal. I hope that everyone was successful this fall in providing services to your students, faculty, staff, community and other users, be they in person, remote or hybrid (where just about everything is). I also hope that through this all, you are able to balance out the goods and bads that life is throwing at all of us right now. It is difficult to see that when you are in the midst of a tricky time, but hopefully things will get better sooner rather than later.
examples from within actual libraries that illustrate when the term is used appropriately.
If that sounds like a previous column, it is because of the strange “Groundhog Day” vibe that we seem to have on campuses. So if we really just focus on what we are here to do, you will have an opportunity to consider some new works on the library and information sciences field as well as new works for library reference. These reviews are ones you are going to want to read if you are building a library, trying to understand copyright or trying to develop an escape room (no that is not for staff meetings — but it is tempting). The reference work included here explores conspiracies — as if we have not had enough of those these past two years.
I am not proposing that you only read Chapter four, but Anderson opens the chapter by stating, “If you only read one chapter in this book, let it be this one.” She is not wrong. Chapter four devotes itself to defining and explaining the “library marketing funnel.” Anderson writes that the marketing funnel concept was created in 1898 and describes the four stages of a customer’s relationship with an organization. The marketing funnel has evolved over the years, and additional stages have been added, bringing the number of stages up to nine. Anderson gently shares with her readers that libraries have not applied the “marketing funnel” to their work with their customers and that, in fact, libraries have built up roadblocks to using libraries. Not to worry, Anderson follows up Chapter four with a chapter on how to fix this problem. Again, she has plenty of real life examples and practical suggestions to illustrate how this can be done.
Reviewing in this issue are: Joshua Hutchinson (University of Southern California), Jennifer Matthews (Rowan University), Rachelle McLain (Montana State University), Mary Catherine Moeller (University of Michigan), John Novak (Fairfield University), Jessica Shuck (Cornerstone University), and Sarah Thorngate (North Park University, Chicago). Thank you everyone for being great partners in this endeavor. If you would like to be a reviewer for Against the Grain, please write me at <cseeman@umich.edu>. If you are a publisher and have a book you would like to see reviewed in a future column, please also write me directly. You can also find out more about the Reader’s Roundup here — https://sites.google.com/view/ squirrelman/atg-readers-roundup. Happy reading and be nutty! — CS
Anderson, Cordelia. Library Marketing and Communications: Strategies to Increase Relevance and Results. Chicago: ALA Editions, 2020. 9780838947999, 157 pages. $54.99 Reviewed by Rachelle McLain (Collection Development Librarian, Montana State University Library, Montana State University, Bozeman) <rachelle.mclain@montana.edu> Inspired by a keynote address she gave at the 2018 Library Marketing and Communications Conference, Cordelia Anderson wrote an outstanding book about how to successfully and strategically launch marketing and communication plans from within libraries. Anderson is a consultant who provides marketing and communications services to community-serving organizations. She begins the book with a detailed, yet easy to understand, description of public relations, marketing, and promotion and how these three terms are very different from each other. Beyond just defining what the terms mean, the author gives very clear
24 Against the Grain / December 2021 - January 2022
Anderson also connects this effort to the broader library mission and direction. I don’t think I can capture how Anderson emphasized this enough except using her own words: a library needs a strategic plan. A library needs to do their research. A library needs a “strategic mindset.” Marketing and communications should ideally be the focus of a staff member(s) work, not necessarily assigned as an afterthought or tacked on to an employee’s list of duties.
Writing a book about marketing and communications would not be complete without a chapter on branding. Chapter six not only wraps itself up by detailing ways to create a brand, it begins by sharing the history of branding and libraries. Anderson shares stationary and bookplates from a former library she worked at, illustrating in this one instance how branding and the library changes over a period of time. The second half of the book focuses on the importance of libraries and the partnerships they can create; the need for advocacy planning; and the critical importance of reputation management and crisis communications. All three of these chapters emphasize the importance of relationships as they relate to these topics. Anderson has examples from her work in libraries over the years that show how the relationships libraries make and build are critical to their success. The final chapter, titiled Staffing and Organizational Structure, takes all of the information presented in the preceding chapters and does a great job of outlining how libraries can get all of it done. Anderson begins the chapter by sharing how to hire professionals from the get go; how to align their work with the library’s priorities; the importance of placing marketing and communications work within a leadership role and then staffing and managing the roles within that department; creating a culture that advocates for diversity and inclusion; and lastly, the importance of library leadership embracing and investing in their marketing and communications. I want to re-read this book already. The real life stories shared by Anderson throughout the book as she illustrated the successful and sometimes not so successful ways that libraries
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