You never get a second chance to make a first impression.

During these tough economic times its important to promote your school library media centers program and collection as integral parts of the learning process. The changing landscape of librarianship demands a wide selection of approaches to promote library resources. Ideas, strategies, and lessons can be learned from the marketing techniques of the national bookstore chains.

Look around your school library media center. Where do you focus your eyes? What really catches your attention? Pretend you are coming into the center as a student or teacher for the first time. Now what do you like or dislike about what you see and feel? Were you greeted by the school library media specialist?

Ask yourself similar questions on your next visit to a national chain bookstore. What are the similarities and differences? What ideas can you take away from your visit and use to improve your library media center image and increase student and teacher use?

We can communicate better with our students and faculty if we study and apply techniques that bookstores use to communicate with customers. Here is one tip to get you started: Experts in customer behavior claim that people entering a store drift toward the right so a stores prime display area is five to twenty steps inside the store to the right of the front door. What can you display in this prime location?

Lets begin with the basics:

Effective Library Signage

Welcoming students as they arrive in the library is the most important and basic premise of marketing and public relations. Students, like the rest of us, are used to being bombarded constantly by messages at all times from television, the Internet, and instant messaging as well as billboards and other advertisements. Signage plays a critical role in creating an appealing and user-friendly environment. This is so important when you consider the fact that you are usually the only "real person" to assist users.

Organize the media center and its collection with students in mind. Can they readily find your Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC)? Can they look up from that OPAC and see a library sign (range finders) that shows them where to go to locate the item? Can they read your library signs from a distance? Does your library signage give them answers at every point where they need to make a decision?

In the many school library media centers that I have visited, I have seen every kind of DDC poster. When I return years later, I see the same set of DDC posters in the same media center. This must change. The stagnant nature of signage is no longer acceptable. you can keep the same content, but vary the color, style, and format of the information. Swap DDC signs with another library. Bilingual/ multilingual signage may be necessary for your student population.

Sign readability is a combination of the color contrast between the letters and their background, the shape of the letters, and the size of the letters. The format, color, and type style should be geared toward the grade levels of the students. All signage should have a distinct purpose and message that would benefit all users. Signs that benefit only a few contribute to visual clutter—something that must be avoided.

Signs that fit the needs of the patrons might announce upcoming events, new books, movie tie-ins, and award-winning titles, or represent a particular genre. Use hook and loop fastener tabs when you put up new signs. By using a tab at the corner of each sign, alternating between the fuzzy and smooth sides, you can easily change or move signs and save wear and tear on your walls.

Free Is Good

Major database vendors supply publicity materials for school library media centers. From posters and tent cards to marketing and public relations tools, these free materials increase awareness of your library's offerings. you may also find downloadable graphics for your webpage, PowerPoint presentations, research tools, and lesson plans for staff development.

The major publisher websites often have pages devoted to teachers and librarians. Check out some of these exceptional resources.

The two major bookstore chains aggressively target educators. Barnes & Noble has the B&N Educator Program www.barnesandnoble.com/bn-at-school/educator.asp , which provides 20 percent off the publisher's list price on all purchases for classroom use and up to 25 percent off the publisher's list price during Educator Appreciation Days. Borders has a similar program at www.borders.com/online/store/MediaView_teachingzone and offers a 25 percent discount for classroom purchases, 30 percent during Educator Appreciation Week.

Indoor/Outdoor Banners

Well-designed banners that include graphics can be a great marketing tool. High traffic areas are the best locations to hang a banner: snack bar area, stadium fencing, cafeteria ceiling, bus loading/unloading areas, and the main entrance to the campus. Let everyone who enters your campus know that the school library media center is important. Design your banner online and e-mail the proof back and forth until you are satisfied. The fixed prices vary according to banner size.

Merchandising

When students and teachers come to the school library media specialist, what are they looking for? How will they find it? In the chain bookstores you will probably find new titles prominently placed at the front and center of the store. Books of local interest, books with movie tie-ins, and books featured in the media (e.g., Oprah, newspapers) make great displays in high traffic areas. You may also see culturally driven displays. Display newly released titles and award-winning titles. Face-out/displayed titles can highlight a popular author, series, or theme.

Book displays are the most effective way to recommend books. Standing books up on a low table is boring and suggests that the books are insignificant. Effective displays recommend books by being located where the display will be easily noticed, attract the eye with color and signage, and reflect the books' importance. DEMCO, Gaylord, and Highsmith all have book display merchandise, which ranges from easels to mobile display carts, acrylic sign holders, and display cases.

One of the best places to display titles is on your shelving end panels. Retailers claim end panel displays sell more items than half of one-side of a range of shelves. If you are fortunate to have slatwall end panels, then purchase a variety of acrylic display items to use on the slatwall. If your end panels are flat, try end panel bins available from North American Enterprise. Most of their products are available in national library supply catalogs. You will save 30 percent or more by ordering directly from the North American Enterprise website http://northamericanenterprise.com.

Trends

National bookstores buyers and local staff have expertise in their areas of book selection. Often you will see "Staff Recommendation" next to titles. Would this work in your school? Ask faculty and students to write a recommendation for a book they have read and post it with the book. Identify the highest circulating titles and ask readers what they liked about the titles. Don't forget movie promotions, a new title in a popular series, required or summer reading, or just simply a display of tides with a similar theme. Newsletters (print or electronic) are terrific vehicles for delivering your messages. Just make sure the newsletter targets your primary prospects and you have a strong message.

Use your library automation system to its fullest. Folletts Destiny home page allows graphics, messages, and category viewing. Create a category "New Books 09/10" so students can read about the new titles purchased during the school year. Change the graphic, message, and background color on your library home page often to attract attention.

Atmosphere

Without fail the chain bookstores are cozy and welcoming with warm colors, comfortable furniture, a strategic floor plan, and of course the café. Has the furniture placement and atmosphere in your school library media center changed recently? Consider some of the following ideas:

• Change the paint color to an accent color on a single wall.
• Add some comfortable and colorful furniture such as bean bag chairs, sofas (with laptop arms), and arm chairs.
• Create a reading nook.
• Provide an area for social opportunities.
• Add area theme rug(s).

Customer Service

The bottom line for any bookstore is to put the book in the customers hand. If the book is unavailable, then employees offer to find or order a copy. Its the same way with student and faculty requests—put the information in their hands (print or electronic). In the school library media center, customer service starts with greeting everyone. Next, the signage should direct students to the appropriate resources and/or encourage them to ask questions. All of the above works best when the school library media specialist is approachable, that is, easy to meet or deal with. Think of every interaction, big or small, online or off, in terms of your approachability.

Students and faculty will chose to communicate with you in different ways. Some will choose face to face, some will e-mail, others will call, while others will do a little of everything. Make all of these ways available and let students know that they can get in touch with you in whatever manner they choose. Sure, you might prefer e-mail. But what matters most is the comfort level of the other person and his or her ability to communicate effectively.

Marketing Your Library Using Web 2.0 Tools

Web 2.0 marketing is the future, but how do you decide what Web 2.0 tools to use? Web 2.0 technologies provide new and exciting ways of extending marketing reach with little effort and cost. Blogs, wikis, and podcasts can help spread your message 24/7. They can help you better understand your patrons (their problems, needs, likes, dislikes, fears, and opinions). Peer-to-peer network sites that support rich media and user-generated content, such as LimeWire, YouTube, SlideShare, and micro-blogging sites such as Twitter can be used to market library programs and services. The use of Web 2.0 should be planned carefully and used strategically. Web 2.0 techniques will continue to reshape how we market our products to our students and teachers.

Community of Stakeholders

The daily activities of our jobs are demanding. Sometimes we believe that once beginning-of-the-year library orientation sessions have been completed everyone knows everything about the school library media center. This is a fallacy! New students are constantly entering our schools. How does a new student receive information about the center? Design and publish a student brochure that every student can understand and that includes hours, staff names, printing/photocopy costs, book checkout/return policy, databases, and access information from campus and home. (If you post the brochure on a public network, omit the login and password information.)

Focusing on your mission to ensure that all students and faculty are effective users of ideas and information requires many approaches. Get the message out to your community through your web page, monthly calendar of events, e-mails, mailing lists, and news media (print and television). Your professional association, the American Association of School Librarians, has numerous resources on their public relations webpage at www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/aasl/aaslarchive/resourceguides/publicrelations.cfm . [Ed Note 2018: Although this page no longer exists there are a variety of resources to be found on the AASL website at http://www.ala.org/aasl/]

Students love to be involved in library activities, so consider some of the following: display of student projects in the school library media center, book fairs, costume character visits, book discussion groups, Skype with an author, and poetry slams. The book Bite-Sized Marketing: Realistic Solutions for the Overworked Librarian by Nancy Dowd, Mary Evangeliste, and Jonathan Silberman provides a plethora of strategies. LaPerriere and Christiansen take a retail vision and apply it to libraries while understanding the differences between libraries and retail stores. Their book shows you how to create branding—and foster customer loyalty—through signage, arrangement, and displays.

As the school library media specialist, it is your professional responsibility to actively market your library media programs and services both inside and outside the school library media center. A productive partnership with your local public library can be effective in promoting lifelong learning. The possibilities are endless. Make communication your priority. What will be your marketing slogan?

WORKS MENTIONED

Dowd, Nancy, Mary Evangeliste, and Jonathan Silberman. Bite-Sized Marketing: Realistic Solutions for the Overworked Librarian. Chicago, IL: American Library Association, 2009. 978-0-8389-1000-9.

LaPerriere, Jenny, and Trish Christiansen. Merchandising Made Simple: Using Standards and Dynamic Displays to Boost Circulation. Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited, 2008. 978-1-59158-561-9.