Marketing electronic resources: our five biggest mistakes

...and how to fix them!

5. Poor web design

Databases are a complex resource, and unless you're careful, they'll be hard to find, hard to browse and hard to search.

The fix: Let designers into the mix. Develop clear web way-finding, make sure we have good instructions and write a good "What are these and how do I use them?" introduction.

4. Marketing them as a lump

Saying "there's great stuff in the resources" isn't working. Very few people think "Ah-ha, THERE'S the great stuff! Just what I was looking for!"

The fix: We need to be promoting what individual resources can do. "Genealogy research? Try HeritageQuest!"

3. Using technical language and jargon to explain them.

You might not think "databases" is jargon, but I think it is - to a lot of people, a database is how you keep track of sales data, not a complex indexing of articles. We also need to watch out for "search Find It Virginia"' and other brand names.

The fix: My personal favorites are "articles" and "research," but you can use anything that makes sense to your non-library friends and family.

4. Attacking Google and Wikipedia.

Google and Wikipedia are fine for most people, who are just trying to find a good-enough answer and get on with their day. When we say "google isn't reliable" without putting that statement in context, we sound like this: "What's that, sonny? The inter-what? No, I don't trust that computer-thingy."

The fix: context! There are circumstances when you really need a specialized resource. When we talk about the differences between subscription databases and Google, we should be giving examples of times when Google won't do the trick.

5. Acting like they are equally useful to everyone.

They're not! Electronic resources are useful to certain subsets of our users, like students, scholars, business owners, etc. So again, be specific about what you're advertising, and to whom.

The fix: we should be marketing specific resources to the particular groups that will find them useful.

Interesting Articles

Shamelessly reposted from our library's wiki: two articles about libraries from non-librarians. Outside perspectives are always interesting. Wired magazine, on the topic of children's ability to evaluate search results: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/11/st_thompson_searchresults/ Make magazine on the future of libraries: http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2011/03/is-it-time-to-rebuild-retool-public-libraries-and-make-techshops.html

Advertising Electronic Resources: What's the Problem?

A week ago, I was asked to start revamping the electronic resources - to come up with a way to "make it so people want to use them." ("Electronic Resources" are the databases that the library subscribes to.)

So I sit down and take a look at the electronic resources page. How should these be organized? Alphabetically? By subject? Actually, we already have them arranged in both those ways. Yet I agree, the electronic resources page is hard to use. What does it need? A better system of visual organization? Different subject categories? My brainstorming was getting me nowhere. I tried picturing myself as a user, visiting the electronic resources page - what would I want to see?

I ran into some trouble at that point: I had no idea what these databases were, or how to use them, or who used them, and for what. I decided to spend a few minutes getting some basic familiarity with this resource. After all, I've been working at the library for five years. I should probably know how to use this service that we're always talking so much about.

FAIL. I spent maybe half an hour trying to figure the bloody things out. I couldn't find a darn thing that seemed even remotely useful or interesting. I'm pretty interested in psychology - specifically evolutionary psychology - and linguistics, and I though maybe I could find some interesting articles to read? Nothing. I tried to think of other things to look up. I went to the kids section and looked up bats; it was WAY less informative than your average internet search. I browsed around, looking for anything that might be remotely interesting. I got absolutely nowhere.

Now, maybe there's something for me in the electronic resources, and maybe there isn't. But how am I supposed to find out?

The problem here, I realized, was not the way the lists were arranged. Adding graphics and visualizations was not going to help. The problem is that most people do not know how to use these resources. I'm a smart, library-literate, net-savvy person. I'm sure that other people are just as confused as me when it comes to the electronic resources, if they ever even venture to that section of the website in the first place.

It's a mixed-blessing realization, because now I'm going to need to find someone to write an "introduction to the electronic resources," along with some user-friendly instructions. I'm pretty sure this will end up looking like a bigger overhaul than my bosses had in mind. Don't be surprised if the only change we end up seeing is some new color-coded organization and a banner advertising a "featured resource." At least I tried.