Marketing and promotion of special libraries and collections: methods, vehicles and activities

Asia-Pacific Library and Information Conference 2018, 30 July - 2 August 2018 Gold Coast: Roar Leap Dare

This conference paper discusses special libraries and the difficulties faced in pising methods, vehicles and activities to market and promote their services and collections.

There may be significant barriers to marketing a special library service. For example, as is the case with the Museums Victoria Library, the collection sits back-of-house and therefore is not visible, and is additionally not represented on the organisation’s corporate website. Both of these things have led to a lack of awareness, as well as limiting the channels available to market the service.

Marketing and communications is not just about increasing users and widening access; it must also be a concerted effort to advocate for, build awareness of, and articulate the value of your library service. In the 2010 ALIA Special Libraries Survey, ‘marketing’ ranked highly as an important skill for a special librarian, and yet only 11.1% of respondents indicated that their library had a marketing plan.