Toolkit for School Library Media Programs - American Library ...

Voices of Experience
The following articles share insights and ideas from
school library media specialists who have marketed their
libraries successfully.
Developing a Market Strategy
By Terri Snethen and Joe Amos
On the front page of the Metropolitan section of the July
7, 2003, Kansas City (MO) Star was an article about
school librarians fighting cuts in their programs. With
many other districts facing the same struggles, it has
become clear why school library programs and even
individual school libraries must develop a marketing
strategy.
At Blue Valley North High School we operate a fourtiered
marketing plan. The first tier consists of students
and faculty. While it should be obvious why we market
to the students, as they are the primary reason for our
existence, we market just as hard to the faculty because
we believe the faculty will be our “Pied Piper” to the
students. Approximately 60 to 70 percent of our
marketing is aimed at students and faculty and we try to
market to each of those groups evenly.
The second tier consists of the administration, both
building and district including the school board. Because
administrators are the ones making decisions about
staffing and budget we must market our successes and
ensure that they understand our vital roles as resource
providers and curricular leaders. We aim 20 to 30
percent of our marketing toward our administration.
Our third layer is parents. Parents are valuable partners
with the library whether helping to get overdue books
returned or encouraging students to use the library’s
resources at home. We direct about 5 to 10 percent of
our marketing at parents.
The final tier consists of community patrons. While
community members may not to be able use our
collections or only use them on-site, we need their
support when bond elections come up, as well as in
electing school board members who value library
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programs and services. Admittedly, we aim less than 5
percent of our marketing strategies directly at the
community-at-large.
Many of the strategies we use with students are quite
simple, but since our main goal is to keep them aware of
library services, we like simple strategies that are easy to
implement and easy for the students to recognize. First,
we have prominent locations for new books, fiction and
nonfiction and advertise their arrival on our Web site. A
monthly display advertises and encourages check out of
books on a particular subject (Poetry Month, Women’s
History Month, etc.).
Our school has daily announcements that are read aloud
and displayed on monitors throughout the school. We
maintain a consistent presence in the announcements
with book talks, book club information and book
reviews. We advertise not only newer popular titles but
also less circulated titles that are great reads.
This year we added peer tutoring to the library media
center. Working with counselors and administrators,
upper-class tutors were assigned to the library one hour
each day. This type of program requires advertising to
study hall teachers, so students in study halls can visit
the library for help.
We also have marketing and promotional activities
aimed at the faculty. In our “Unfavorite Lesson Plan Day”
we advertise that librarians are available all day to work
with teachers on lesson plans or units they wish to
improve. The librarians work with teachers to write
improved lesson plans that may or may not include work
in the library. It’s important that teachers trust that our
goal is to support their efforts, not just promote our own
program.
We use e-mails to alert the faculty about articles in
professional journals, new books, best practices, or even
humorous stories and jokes about teaching. There are
two characteristics required of these e-mails. The first is a
clear subject heading so teachers know exactly what the
e-mail is about. This gives the teachers the power to
choose what they read. Second, we keep the messages
as brief as possible. When sending out e-mails about