It does seem that there’s a need to find a balance between “core” librarianship (say reference and cataloguing/information organisation) and teaching more generalised skills that are often useful in libraries (IT, marketing, management, etc).

Susan: I wouldn’t see marketing as ‘selling things to people’, more as ‘finding out what their needs are, and explaining how we can help meet them’ – it’s focused on what the person wants, not what the library/organisation wants to sell them.

As a Library Director, and even before this position, I find that a significant percentage of my “job” relates to marketing. In fact, I might even say that everything we do on a public level is marketing the library.

How I participate in a organization wide committee. Whether I’m even on a organization wide committee. What I blog, tweet, email. How I blog, tweet, email. Etc.

In looking back at my MLS transcript (SJSU, 2004), I see no marketing class on the list though one may have been offered. Is it possible to teach this in Library School? How would it be presented/discussed? In my opinion, part of marketing is just knowing that we represent our profession and we should carry ourselves with that in mind.

Positive. Upbeat. Intelligent. Willing. Broad. Open. Professional. Critical. Competent.

These are a few words that come to mind when I think of our profession. If we do this, the profession AND the library is being marketed. Of course, this is big picture stuff and perhaps not the “nuts and bolts” of marketing. Can we do both?

For me though, part of the reason I want to be a librarian is that I’ve spent a lot of time in retail and I don’t really want to sell people things anymore. And the concept of marketing is so closely related to that in my head.

In order to market marketing to librarians and future librarians, it may be better to spin it as advocacy. Or better patron service. Both of those concepts seem better suited to librarians’ self-image.

But what about for a simple storytime program? Or gaming tournament? Librarians should be aware of basic marketing techniques – like Heather noted, there’s no money for hiring professionals for everyday stuff like that!

I work in a small library. There is no money to hire professional marketing help, no matter how hard I wish for it. I’m a believer that every library school student should learn marketing basics along with creating budgets, writing strategic plans, managing employees, etc.

Why _should_ library schools offer marketing courses? Are librarians to be jacks-of-all-trades, masters-of-none?

Why not just have libraries hire actual marketing experts? Why do they have to be librarians? That is what we recently decided to do where I work and it was one of the best decisions we ever made…

There is a certain element of ivory tower syndrome in libraries, as if marketing is something done in the dog-eat-dog corporate world alone. Surely people recognize the value of libraries and librarians, right? We shouldn’t have to stoop to selling ourselves and our services like so much soap or fast food.

But libraries have to be about money, particularly in this economy. And where resources are scarce and we’re up against firemen, police, water and sewer, we HAVE to market ourselves and MAKE the case for funding. No choice here.

Another option would be to integrate marketing into other library courses. That may hold more promise, as I could easily see it being a more prominent part of many classes I have taken.