Look what we’ve got for you! : Promoting library collections

Librarians spend a lot of time and thought on the question "what to buy for the library?" to meet the users’ needs as best as possible. But what happens once a book or a database or a journal has made it onto the (virtual) shelf? How do users learn about new acquisitions or interesting hol...

Authors: Voß, Viola
Hamrin, Göran
Division/Institute:FB 09: Philologie
Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Münster
Document types:Conference object
Media types:Text
Publication date:2021
Date of publication on miami:19.08.2021
Modification date:08.08.2022
Edition statement:[Electronic ed.]
Subjects:library holdings; library collections; collection management; collection promotion; marketing activities; University and Regional Library Münster Bibliotheksmarketing; Bibliotheksbestände; ULB Münster
DDC Subject:020: Bibliotheks- und Informationswissenschaften
License:CC BY 4.0
Language:Englisch
Notes:Talk given at the 41th Annual IATUL Conference 2021, Porto, Portugal. https://iatul2021.fe.up.pt/
The paper resulting from this talk can be found at https://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:hbz:6-23089463751
Format:PDF document
video/mp4
URN:urn:nbn:de:hbz:6-16079547855
Other Identifiers:DOI: 10.17879/23089461650
Permalink:https://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:hbz:6-16079547855
Digital documents:IATUL2021_Voss-Hamrin_communication.pdf
IATUL2021_Voss-Hamrin_presentation.pdf
IATUL2021_Voss-Hamrin_presentation_recording.mp4
Download data:ZIP File

Librarians spend a lot of time and thought on the question "what to buy for the library?" to meet the users’ needs as best as possible. But what happens once a book or a database or a journal has made it onto the (virtual) shelf? How do users learn about new acquisitions or interesting holdings? In this talk we take a tour across collection-marketing activities by academic or research libraries, highlighting some successful examples and collecting ideas for reuse. Method: We scouted the internet presence of all IATUL member libraries, taking into account their websites and, if available, their web 2.0 / social media activities. We added findings from literature and from recommendations by colleagues. Results: Our data collection gives an overview of collection-marketing activities in academic libraries all over the world. In our talk, we discuss the different types of activities, present some examples that we consider interesting, and give insights into some experimental activities at one of the authors’ libraries. Limitations: We can only analyse the activities of those libraries that use a working language we can understand, which rules out some libraries that don’t have, e.g., a version of their website in English, German, French, or Scandinavian languages. Moreover, we only consider the perspective and activities of the libraries—but not the perspective and expectations of their users. An investigation asking whether they may have informational needs regarding collections that are not yet met by libraries would be an interesting complement to our study.