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Making "E" Visible 6/20/02
To draw patrons past the Googles of the world, we need to revolutionize how electronic resources are promoted. ~
This summer, I helped a Yale grad student writing her dissertation on African American life in the Chicago suburbs. We spent hours adjusting microfilm, photocopying census records and city directories, looking for oral history collections, retrieving digitized Chicago Tribune articles, and more. One day she came over to show me a wonderful new online tool she'd discovered that let her search through thousands of scholarly articles and print out the full text. She was referring to Google Scholar.
"Isn't this great?" she asked happily, as the titles of thousands of articles scrolled across her screen. I pointed out that almost none of the pages she'd retrieved actually provided the full text for free, that she couldn't search by subject terms or in the article abstracts, and that she could search by author but not sort articles by author or date. She was undeterred: "But this covers so many sources! Where else could I find this much in one place?" she exclaimed. I showed her the hundreds of online sources available at the Yale library web site, including an African American newspapers database and historical databases for national newspapers. She had never seen or used any of these before.
FREE DATABASES
My sister-in-law, a freelance tutor who works with troubled kids in New York, was in the throes of SAT prep season. "These tests change so often," she groaned. "All the test prep guides I bought are out-of-date already." I asked her if she'd tried the public library. "Oh, their books are way too old," she said. I pointed out that the New York Public Library and Brooklyn Public Library both provide their cardholders with paid subscriptions to an online test prep service. No one in her tutoring program had ever used the resource.
At a Morningstar party during a recent conference, a youthful library school student who lives in my town and I were bemoaning the invisibility of libraries to most online surfers. "People keep buying all these pricey online services when they could be getting the same material from their libraries," I remarked, sipping a chardonnay.
"I know," he agreed. "What are people thinking? I mean with something like Morningstar it's different...no one's going to be able to get that from a library." I swallowed and pointed out the library does subscribe to Morningstar online. Confused, he explained that he pays for the premium edition because he needs 24/7 access. He was devastated to hear that the library provides 24/7 remote access to the exact same material he'd been paying for monthly. Why are smart, well-educated, otherwise well-informed people so glaringly ignorant of what their libraries offer in the way of online research? And what are we doing about it?
Missing the mark
Actually, librarians think they are doing a lot about it. Go to nearly any public library's web site, and you'll see such headings as "Online Research Tools" or "Use Our Databases" or "The 24/7 Library." We dutifully publicize our "database of the month" in the library newsletter and post helpful explanations on the superiority of library databases to Google searching. We attend workshops and poster sessions on "Marketing Online Resources" and hand out neatly typed bookmarks listing all our databases.
It isn't helping.
Recently OCLC released "Perceptions of Libraries and Information Resources", a survey of a representative sample of over 3300 online information consumers and their information-seeking behavior. The survey findings indicate that 84 percent of information searches begin with a search engine. Library web sites were selected by just one percent of respondents as the source used to begin an information search. Only two percent of college students start their search at a library web site. In fact, only 16 percent of respondents had ever used an online database and only 30 percent had ever used a library web site. Yet, 72 percent had used free search engines like Google. The report concludes, "...the majority of information seekers are not making much use of the array of electronic resources (online magazines, databases and reference assistance, for example) libraries make available to their communities."
In other words, despite all our marketing attempts, very few of our patrons are logging on to library databases. We know the need is there; how many times have you been approached by a patron who's "looked everywhere for this, even on Google!" and come up empty-handed? In every instance, when I've shown students, or book club members, or investors how easily they could find exactly what they need through a library product, they are amazed and delighted. Clearly, there is a need for online services other than Google, but why aren't people using them?
The free stuff conundrum
We know that databases cost libraries thousands of dollars every year, and they are worth every penny, but our patrons do not. Instead of merely describing them as "free," we should remind patrons of what this service can do for them and that quality database access is a privilege they get for belonging to such a forward-thinking community.
Libraries equal online searching
For most of the general public, online searching is what you do instead of using the library. Remember that infamous commercial that touted home computer use as an alternative to jackbooted, tyrannical librarians? How often have we heard a patron say, "Well, I couldn't find it on the Internet so I decided I had to come to the library." For most patrons, libraries are the antithesis of the online world. They have no idea that most libraries and librarians have been online far longer than they have.
In the popular mind, libraries equal one thing: books. Despite hundreds of glowing articles touting libraries as the destination for audios, videos, DVDs, etc., and despite many, many patrons actually checking out and using nonbook materials through their libraries, as the OCLC report confirms, books are still what patrons associate with libraries.
"Database" is a scary word
One of my vendor reps laughingly reports that when he tells friends he sells databases, they ask, "Oh, you mean like Oracle?" "Database" means something complicated and techie to most people, not something they'd be likely to use. (See John Kupersmith's web site and presentation "Library Terms That Users Understand" We need to find ways to describe our online services that sound appealing and familiar, such as "e-collections," "electronic library," "24-hour library," "desktop library," etc.
Judging from the layout of their web sites, librarians and vendors have a misplaced faith in the strength of vendor brand names. Many a library arranges the databases alphabetically only, with no annotations. Do we really expect patrons to know what "EBSCOhost," "WilsonSelect," and "General Reference Center Gold" can do for them?
Vendors need to know that no one recognizes their brand names. People have short memories and shorter attention spans, so vendors should make product names clear, short, and intuitive. Google works partly because it's easy to remember. WebMD and FindArticles.com are both easy to remember and intuitive. Most library database names are neither.
Librarians need to make databases easy to find. Group them by topic and link to them from multiple places on your site. I'm always amazed at the number of libraries with "database" pages with no links to "Homework help" or the teen page, or Internet guides, or recommended reading lists. Most users don't care about format. They want to be able to find all the health sources in one place, whether they are magazine articles, web sites, books, or ebooks.
Keep it simple
You would think that some vendors don't want anyone to use their products. Every year, our state library runs Try-It! Illinois, a two-month free trial of hundreds of databases. There is a login to access the list, but then the individual vendors can set up additional logins. The smart ones allow users to go directly from the Try-It page, while some insist on adding complicated, hard-to-remember user IDs and passwords, often for each database. Guess whose products patrons are more likely to try? Guess which ones libraries tend to buy and which ones we never look at?
You would think some libraries don't want anyone to use their products. A school library in our area hands students a list of 21 online database subscriptions, each with its own password. Surprise! No one ever uses them. Why are they saddled with such a clunky system for remote authentication? School ID cards have six digits, but many vendors will only set up automatic remote library logins of 12 or 14 digits. The school has never bothered to explore a different numbering system. The thousands of dollars spent on e-databases go to waste, and the students use their pretty cards to scribble down URLs found surfing the web.
Our patrons don't share our threshold for "simple" and "easy to use." We may feel library product searches are more rewarding, but they are definitely more cumbersome. For the patron with a fairly simple question, it's just not going to be worthwhile to remember lengthy library URLs, barcodes, and passwords, or to skim through five different databases. We need to advocate for simpler access: intuitive URLs, federated search tools, and streamlined web page organization. If barcode authentication is the only way to provide remote access, for example, how can we make barcodes easier to remember? Some libraries issue a barcode keychain tag with every library card, making it more likely patrons will always have their barcode handy. The Southeast Massachusetts Library System allows patrons to register their own four-character passwords in lieu of using library barcodes. We need to look for more such creative ideas.
The Vendor Connection
A patron loves our popular online white and yellow pages directory but can never remember that he needs to go through the library web page to use it. Instead, he Googles the name, goes to the company web site...and of course finds he can't access the database. Nothing there tells him how to connect through his public library.
Our online test preparation vendor is no better. Although the marketing reps happily send me promotional posters and bookmarks, all of their materials show only one URL: the company's. The site has no pointers to the subscribing libraries. I stamp or write our library URL on each poster (there's no room on the bookmarks), but wouldn't it be nice if the vendors did this for us?
Vendors, you need to:
Link to subscribing libraries on your web site Retail giants let web searchers look up the local store by zip code or with a map. Why don't you? Use a map and let patrons click on their state and town to connect directly. Sure, this would be time-consuming and hard to maintain, but do you want people to use your stuff or not? Why not mention libraries in ads and on the site?
Mention library access in your advertising A popular newspaper service was running some great spots on NPR this spring. "Use us to find newspaper articles from around the country! A premier online research service, available at www.companyname.com." No, it is not available at www.companyname.com" but through library web sites.
An MLS is not an MBA Librarians are not marketers. Marketing is a highly developed skill that professionals spend years refining-it's not something you can pick up at a PLA preconference. Most public libraries offer classes, send press releases to local papers, invite the chamber of commerce to take a look. But enough is enough. We are not marketers, graphic designers, or PR specialists.
So, stop putting the onus on libraries to do the marketing. Giving us press releases does not work. The local paper will run them-buried in the back page of a community column that almost no one reads. This is a complete waste of time. And, enough with the bookmarks. We distribute thousands of them, but they don't generate much use of the products. They also usually list the vendor's URL, not ours.
There is empirical evidence that advertising to the public works better than promoting online services through libraries. According to the OCLC survey, 39 percent of information seekers learn about new electronic information sources through promotions or advertising, as opposed to only 15 percent by referencing the library web site. The librarian was ranked lowest, at eight percent, as a source of information about e-resources. Why then do vendors entrust such an important task to novices? Do beer companies leave it up to individual bars to promote their brands? Of course not! Thomson Gale is already moving in this direction with AccessMyLibrary.com, which provides a search engine for articles in Gale databases and then links patrons to subscribing libraries in their zip codes.
Advertise directly to end users and encourage them to ask if your products are available through their libraries. Get some of those teen bloggers to write about databases. Are you advertising in teen magazines and on their web sites, college web sites, parenting magazines, women's magazines, iVillage? FindArticles.com does. WebMD does. Guess which services the general public has heard of?
Make community connections Advertise on web sites for local chambers of commerce, schools, hospitals, municipalities, etc. We keep getting told at library conferences that we should be doing this, but we don't have the time or expertise. You have marketing departments, we don't. Send some of those sales reps to national chambers of commerce meetings, to mayors' and governors' conferences, and to public health conferences.
Link to libraries from your web sites Ideally, a potential patron will see one of your ads and go to your web site and see a nice big link reading, "Use us from your desktop for free! Look for your library here!" A user gets a list of libraries, clicks on the local one and then to your service from the library web page.
Tips for Librarians
Although I believe the lion's share of database promotion should come from vendors, there are a few things librarians can do:
Promote in conjunction with local organizations
Do the web pages for your local chamber of commerce, health services, city services, and schools link directly to your database page, or just to "The Public Library"? Make sure those other information providers in your community know about your online business, health, and academic resources and encourage them to promote library databases to their members and clients.
Market products by topic
People pay more attention to an ad for a specific service than to flyers promoting an amorphous range of items. Make it easy for patrons to find all your health resources or all your business resources from the same places.
Mention safety
Many parents I've talked to are afraid to let their kids go online owing to fears of online predators, sexually explicit sites, hate sites, etc. While these fears may be somewhat exaggerated, we can use it for our benefit and, ultimately, the community's.
Make databases easy to find
How likely are patrons to stumble on your database products through your web site? Do you use a federated search tool, or do patrons search each product individually? Show the online versions of reference books and periodicals in your online catalog. Make multiple links to the databases from key pages such as the business reference page and others.
Demand that vendors shoulder the burden of marketing, and refuse to patronize those that don't Vendors can get the word out to regular people that A) these databases exist; B) they are better than the free web; and C) they are available through libraries. If they don't, our usage will continue to fall, and we will stop subscribing. With all the money and time vendors spend promoting themselves to libraries, there has to be budget available to promote to the general public. Libraries need help from vendors to make these databases as visible as Google and Wikipedia. Another package of bookmarks isn't going to do it.
