Welcome to photo Friday! Click on image to enlarge.
View the entire collection here.
I’d love to broaden the gallery with more photos and other image types that exude a love of libraries and help reinforce the brand.
Are you a visual person? Please consider becoming a guest artist.
Brands. They’re instantly recognizable, even as mere snippets from a distance …
They evoke feelings and thoughts. They influence behavior.
Organizations spend billions each year creating and preserving them, for they know brand loyalty grows and dies hard.
I’d argue library is also a brand and needs to be actively managed to increase its visibility and public support. A few thoughts and observations…
Libraries currently do not have a logo; they have thousands of them. Each library creates its own and this can dilute the power of the brand. I strongly recommend public libraries adopt a common symbol endowed with an extensible professional design (Apple does this beautifully) and clear usage guidelines.
Earlier this month, the ALA/PLA announced a two-year, $750,000 grant from Dollar General. Half of it will be distributed to 70 libraries within close proximity to a DG location. In return for the $5,000 grant, individual libraries will be required to participate in a 60 minute media training and do a variety of other promotional work for ALA and Dollar General.
Dollar General is a low-end retailer that Hoovers describes as “living off the crumbs of Walmart”.1 Not surprisingly, the company has a reputation for unenlightened management and undervaluing its workforce (here and here, for instance). The library grant is effective brand management for Dollar General because it associates the company with an organization that can elevate its image. Can the same be said for the libraries?
The Got Milk? campaign has painted a white moustache on hundreds of spokespeople over the years. In every image, the people look good and the brand looks real good on them.
Contrast this with a 40 year campaign to change the image of librarians. In 1970, the ALA hung a daffy librarian from a pole. In 2009 it brought nationwide attention to nordic warrior queens battling it out in the Librarian Book Cart Drill Championships. I can only imagine the campaigns in intervening years. If choices from last year’s Top 50 Librarian Blogs2 is representative, I’d prefer not to know.
I think it’s fair to say that not so long ago, people shared a reasonably consistent idea of what a library was and what services it provided. This meaning has dissipated as libraries have become less secure about their identity and value, and other organizations have stepped in to provide traditional library services.
College libraries have become “information commons”. Public libraries are becoming library-communitycenter-coffeeshop-museum almagamations. Google claims to be the custodian of public domain books on the cover page of every downloadable book in its collection and promotes its service as helping “readers discover the world’s books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences.” And the tagline of the wonderful service, findingDulcinea, actually reads “Librarian of the Internet”.
Libraries need to stake a claim — to a strong identity and a few services they perform better than other governmental or commercial organizations. Strong executive leadership can get them there.
1Summary from Hoovers: Dollar General’s at ease with living off the crumbs of Wal-Mart. The retailer commands a chain of more than 8,700 discount stores in 35 states, primarily in the southern and eastern US, the Midwest and the Southwest. Offering basic household items, such as cleaning supplies and health and beauty aids, as well as some apparel and food, it targets low-, middle-, and fixed-income customers. Stores are generally located in small towns off the radar of giant discounters. Its big-city stores (about 30% of its total) are situated in lower-income neighborhoods. About 35% of its merchandise is priced at $1 or less. Two years after being taken private by affiliates of KKR and Goldman Sachs the chain went public in 2009.
2From the top 20: Annoyed Librarian, ranting from the shadows with wit and venom; The Days & Nights of the Lipstick Librarian, a brash and sexy librarian who tells the mousy stereotypes to shove it; and The Society for Librarians* Who Say “Motherfucker”.
Themes of leadership and outreach have coursed through the Radical Patron content in 2010. Today’s post introduces another: applying business principles to public libraries.
Libraries wisely seem interested in how to climb the ladders and avoid the chutes. With nearly 30 years (yikes) experience working in and consulting for businesses, I have perspectives and ideas that may help. For starters, here are key imperatives that get organizations to higher ground:
This involves taking an honest and hard look at your organization’s culture, resources and the value it delivers. What does it do really well and what does it stub its toe on? What is your company’s value proposition? Which of your products or services are best of breed and which are me-too offerings?
It’s really important to know these things because they inform everything else on the list.
Consultants will tell you that the top 2 providers of a given product/service have the vast majority of market share; all others divvy up the rest. They’ll also advise that you need to be the top provider in at least one thing and runner up in one or two others. So knowing your competition is just as important as knowing your own company. What do your competitors offer? Can you do it better or just as well? What are the gaps in their offering and can your company fill them better than another can? Are you able to deliver something no one else can?
Libraries have traditionally viewed themselves as outside the competitive realm, however the explosion of product and service providers over the past 30 years makes a new, competition-oriented mindset necessary. People have more and more alternatives to meet their needs. Given so many choices, what will draw them to a library?
Assuming you know your company well, where do you turn for help outside your core competencies?
Libraries tend to rely heavily on other libraries for innovations, best practices and affirmation. It’s time for them to open up to more outside help. I’m confident residents and community members with specific expertise like marketing, publicity, event recruitment and technology would be willing to share it if they felt their advice was valued and volunteer time well spent. They’ll just as readily withdraw if they grow frustrated by library staff and Friends that cannot truly welcome new ideas and new people.
Really important. I’ll take a close look at this in the next post.
Setting goals is an inherent part of running a good business. Well-run businesses continually set specific goals for themselves and their employees have personal goals, goals for their departments and more frequently for teams and projects as well. Employees also need to be aware of and contribute to the company’s goals. In business, we got lotza goals and ask the same question of every one: is it measurable — for if the goal isn’t measurable, how will we know it’s been met?
We use the specifics of a goal to help drive new ideas and assess the value of work activities. If what we’re doing brings us closer to achievement, we keep doing it. If not we make adjustments, reassess, and abandon anything that’s not working. It’s a continuous process and becomes second nature once you get the hang of it.
Well-run businesses are pretty good at this. Sometimes the challenge arises out of pain reduction — employees will deem something a waste of time and figure out how to make it better. Or a customer rejects a product or service. At other times a manager might initiate a challenge by saying “We’ve got a lot to get done this season and can’t afford to spend so much time on [work activity]. How can we get ahead of it this time?” Either way, there is motivation to improve quality or reduce cost. In business we’re always looking for a 2-fer or 3-fer, and so regardless of the impetus we incorporate providing better service, reducing cost and promoting the brand into everything we do.
Company culture is key here. Does your company have specific goals to help drive success? Are employees empowered? Are they rewarded for making things better?
