Future-Driven Library Marketing

Library Journal

Weingand (Customer Service Excellence: A Concise Guide for Librarians, Professional Reading, LJ 4/15/97) presents an excellent guide to combining the concepts and practices of marketing with futures strategies, focusing on positioning the library as the choice information provider to all customers. Powerful chapters cover the foundation of marketing, working for a preferred future, using the Delphi method to develop a futures screen, visioning, identifying future products for customers, cost-benefit analysis of these products, distribution of library products and services, introducing products that have met identified needs, using a simulation to evaluate success, and preparing for the 21st century. Weingand expands on Philip Kotler's (Marketing for Nonprofit Organizations, Prentice Hall, 1995) four Ps--product, price, place, and promotion--by adding prelude (marketing audit) and postlude (evaluation). This vibrant resource will assist MLIS faculty looking to move their curriculum a few notches above cataloging and bulletin board management and prepare students for the new future of library services. Highly recommended for all MLIS faculty and larger academic libraries.--Dale F. Farris, Groves, TX

Booknews

Goes beyond marketing-as-usual and offers a practical program to position and market the library as the chosen information provider for all its customers. Looks at future-driven strategies that position the library for success, such as marking a futures screen using the Delphi method, identifying future products through scenario building, and using decision trees to determine distribution of library services. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.