Marketing Reference

Marketing Reference is a BIG THING these days -- and with good reason.  Our patrons have discovered that they can actually find information on the internet!  Consequently, we don't answer as many reference questions.  Horrors!!

We like to think that our citizens can't find "good" information on their own -- that they wallow around in wikipedia citing half-baked articles in term papers and quoting misinformation to their friends.  Would that this were the case.  Wake up, Librarians!  Patrons have learned to find useful info without us.  We've spent several years teaching them how and they are definitely catching on.  I regularly talk to patrons who have already used the resources I want to direct them to.  They know about databases and how to use them.  They tell me about good sites to include in libguides.  What's a reference librarian to do?  Sit back and wait for my job to be cut?  Not on your life!  I'm getting out there and telling those hapless suckers who haven't visited a library in years all about our reference services.

Yes, indeed.  I'm going to market reference to the Great Uninformed.

Sometimes it actually works.  Several years ago we started attending the local business expo.  We barked at the front of the booth like doormen on Bourbon Street.  We grabbed stragglers by the elbow ("What's your line of business?") and steered them  to the computer for a magical demonstration of the next cool thing -- databases!  ("All you need is a library card.  And it's FREE!").  The guys from the Geek Squad  actually got excited about Safari Tech Books and I got a love note from a young guy who made cold calls for his firm.  I showed him Reference USA.

Marketing reference is harder now.  It's more about marketing the library than it is about marketing information services.  At my library I've started an outreach program that will provide computer classes to folks in assisted living.  So far, we've visited 4 sites.  They all want us to come back.  Is this marketing reference?  Sort of -- reference provides computer education in our system.  But it's really marketing a library service.  I was on TV twice this month, talking about our newest databases:  Freegal, Opera in Video and Music Online.  Marketing reference?  Not really.  But reference is the place to find out how to use these databases. 

Our most popular LibGuides (created and maintained by reference folks) are more successful as reference marketing tools.  Here we can actually point to resources.  YAY!!  But the most popular guides are Great Reads for Teens (RA for fiction) and Music, DVDs and Movies.  Not exactly reference guides.  Fortunately, our Arts & Culture, People Connection and Baton Rouge Room guides are also well used, so I can consider LibGuides as a successful reference marketing tool.

I hear a lot about how reference has changed and might be in danger of becoming obsolete.  Reference as an information function has changed since I started out 17 years ago -- we aren't researchers so much anymore.  But one thing that hasn't changed about reference work and never will...  Patrons look to us for answers:  how to cope with technology; where to find cheap/free entertainment options; how to find job opportunities or social support.  It doesn't matter that they can more easily find things on their own.  They will always need help; we will always be there to provide it.