Apply the fundamental principles of planning, management, marketing, and advocacy
Introduction
A day as a librarian may be spent answering reference questions, planning innovative programming, and updating the collection, but the library is also a business. As a business any successful library needs to be engaged in the regular work required of any business like planning, management, marketing, and advocacy. Each of these pieces work together to create a well run and responsive library.
Planning
Planning, at its most basic level, allows an organization to know where it wants to go. Libraries do this by developing strong strategic plans. Usually a strategic plan is initiated when there is a change in managerial direction but not always. A strategic plan includes all stakeholders in an organization, both from library management and library staff which allows a full buy-in to the directives that are developed. This process starts with a well thought out vision and mission statement to define the library’s purpose. Another document that is useful to create when doing a strategic plan is an environmental scan. The environmental scan is an outwardly looking document that identifies near and long term trends within the community that will be challenges for the library. A SWOT analysis looks at the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and external threats within the library (Rosenblum, 2018). By developing a strategic plan a library is no longer a ship without a rudder. The vision, mission statement, environmental scan, and SWOT analysis all are documents that can be referenced when making management decisions. For example, let us say that our library mission statement was “We are a public library committed to popular fiction reading for our rural community” and management was considering a request to purchase a medical database. Management can confidently reject the medical database purchase because it does not align with the stated mission. Although this is an obvious example, these planning documents are invaluable for defining focus and guiding budget decision making.
Management
Management is basically the use of an “organization’s resources to best achieve its objectives through planning, organizing, staffing, leading, and controlling” (Moran, 2018, P. 106). These resources are always finite so it is imperative that librarians practice good management to achieve their goals. Most management structures can be broken down into three categories, top management, middle management, and supervisors. Top management usually means the library director who is ultimately responsible for all organizational decisions and budgets. Middle management refers to division heads like Collection Development or possibly the Branch Manager for large systems. Those in middle management report to the Library Director and liaise between top management and supervisors. Finally, supervisors manage the day to day operations of the library and often are in charge of library pages and other support staff. The supervisors ensure that the overall organizational goals that are defined by top management are reflected on the library floor. Supervisors are in charge of their staff’s work schedules and training (Morgan, 2018, P. 108).
Marketing
Having a marketing plan is essential to management success. A true marketing plan is not just advertising library programming but rather is a fully throughout initiative that takes its direction from the library’s strategic plan and other planning documents (Romaniuk, 2018). The first step in creating a marketing plan involves doing market research to understand the customer you are serving. Besides internal statistics around borrowing and program participation, libraries can use census data and other lifestyle geographic data to create a full picture of library patrons. The next step is to segment patrons into groups based on attributes. Only after this is done can the library identify a target market it wants to serve. In order to serve this identified target market of patrons the library should use a marketing mix of product, price, place, and promotion to create valuable programming, services, and collections that address that market’s needs (Romaniuk, 2018). A full marketing plan is not simply throwing together some flyers but starts even before the programming is created.
Advocacy
Advocacy is the final piece of the management puzzle. The goal of advocacy is “to gain stable support for a well-funded organization” (Stenstrom, 2018). The most well managed organization is dead if it cannot communicate out its success to those that support it with funding. Communicating out that success involves first identifying the key decision makers and influencers. This means being aware of who makes funding decisions and also who influences those individuals. For example, the key decision makers in a school district might be the school board, but those who influence those board members are the principals, teachers, and parents. Once the key decision maker groups have been identified one builds awareness for the library and generates interest by promoting the library throughout the year with messaging specific to each group. That messaging needs to clearly demonstrate the value the library brings and align with that specific group’s goals. Advocacy is ongoing and should be a part of every program plan. Finally, it is imperative that advocacy work is done with full awareness of budget schedules. Advocating for more funds will never be successful if your proposal arrives the month after the budget is finalized.
Competency development
I started developing the awareness of management, planning, marketing, and advocacy through my work at SJSU over the last three years. The INFO 204 Information Professionals class provided a strong foundation to look at libraries with modules on common planning tools like a Strategic Plan, SWOT analysis, and Emergency Preparedness documents. Through analyzing public library documents I received practice with both creating and critiquing these plans. INFO 233 School Media Centers was instrumental in my understanding of advocacy. This class spoke frequently of the necessity to build advocacy into one’s library plan. It stated that every initiative should be looked at through the lens of advocacy. During program planning the need to quantify program results should be considered and specific metrics collected right from the start. A whole module is dedicated to advocacy and a major assignment was the Advocacy Tools Organizer.
Outside of my classwork I have come to understand the complexity of library management in my role of site tech librarian at Guadalupe Elementary School. When I arrived in the role there were no planning documents at all. My first initiative was to create a strategic plan to work from. Although it is still a work in progress, I found tremendous value in defining for myself the goals of my school library. I also have started working on advocating for the school library with the school board members. Last year I developed a school wide reading contest and created a short two minute video to share with the board to start to build my school library’s brand.
Evidence Description
INFO 204 – SWOT Analysis San Jose Public Library Almaden Branch
This SWOT analysis of the Almaden Valley branch of the San Jose Public library is a clear example of my understanding of the fundamentals of creating a library management planning document.
INFO 233 – Advocacy Tools Assessment Organizer
I choose to share the advocacy tools assessment organizer as a direct and clear example of my understanding of the many different stakeholders involved when advocating for the library. This plan includes major funding decision makers like school board members and also incidental funding decision makers like the school admin assistant.
Professional Experience – School Board Bookfest Report Video
I am choosing this short video to demonstrate my understanding of marketing within the realm of advocacy. The video is a short two minutes and includes key measurements that demonstrate the success of the program while respecting the school board member’s time.
Professional Experience – Guadalupe Elementary Library Strategic Plan
In my role as the site tech librarian at Guadalupe Elementary I found no planning documents at all from the district or from former occupants of my role. I created this strategic plan for the library to define the direction of the library and define our library goals. I have used this document successfully to advocate for more funding from the Home and School Club.
Concluding Remarks
Libraries are business and a well run business will focus on the four fundamental pillars of a strong business: planning, management, marketing, and advocacy. Strong planning documents are a solid foundation that managers can use to help make decisions. A true marketing strategy begins with understanding one’s customer and then using a mix of price, product, place, and promotion in order to fully engage the target patron. Finally, a sold advocacy plan will help secure funding into the future. Now more than ever libraries need to attend to these fundamental business ideas.
References
Moran, B. (2018). The new manager: What you need to know to achieve managerial success in today’s libraries. In K. Haycock & M.-J. Romaniuk (Eds.), The portable MLIS: insights from the experts (Second edition, pp. 103-117). Libraries Unlimited, an imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC.
Romaniuk, M. (2018). Libraries and marketing: So essential but so misunderstood. In K. Haycock & M.-J. Romaniuk (Eds.), The portable MLIS: insights from the experts (Second edition, pp. 119-135). Libraries Unlimited, an imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC.
Rosenblum, L. (2018). Strategic planning. In S. Hirsh (Ed.), Information Services today: An introduction. (Second edition, pp. 231-245). Rowman & Littlefield.
Stenstrom, C. (2018). Advocacy. In S. Hirsh (Ed.), Information Services today: An introduction. (Second edition, pp. 343-353). Rowman & Littlefield.
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