The other day I was driving home from a client meeting, and I was thinking about key messages. It suddenly hit me that all libraries have the same basic key messages. Sure, the who, what, when, where and how may differ from library to library, and from academic to public to special libraries. But the actual big picture messages are very similar.
Here is my starting list of what I think are the core key messages that any library could use. The key message is in bold; the other text is my explanation. I welcome your thoughts! What am I missing?
- The Library is for you / for everyone. All libraries seek to be inclusive, welcoming places. We don’t charge admission. While we may not always live up to this promise, it is a core value of libraries.
- The Library offers books and resources in every format you want. Again, due to limited budgets, we may not always live up to this. But we strive to spread our budgets as equitably as we can across many formats, genres and platforms.
- Expert Library staff and tools can help you find what you need. This may be a book, an archive, a resource, or an answer to a question.
- Libraries help to preserve and share our history. Whether in the form of paper documents, digital archives, genealogy databases, or programs, libraries are tackling the challenge of preserving and sharing our history in a time when this is more important than ever.
- The Library is your place to be – a home away from home, an office, a place to study, or simply to relax. In sociology, a “third place” refers to social surroundings that are separate from the two usual environments of home (“first place”) and workplace (“second place”). In his book The Great Good Place (1989), Ray Oldenburg argues that third places are important for civil society, democracy, civic engagement and establishing feelings of a sense of place. (Summarized from Wikipedia.)
- The Library can help your personal and professional development. From language learning apps, to test prep, to resume writing workshops, libraries have a wide array of resources to support lifelong learning. In many cases, the only limitation is that people don’t know these resources are available!
- The Library supports education. Whether you are an academic library supporting students, faculty and staff; a public library supporting early learners, schoolchildren and adult learners; or a special library supporting a government agency, a good education requires access to reliable, trusted sources of information and the tools or people needed to find them.
- The Library is an important source of publicly available computers, internet and technology. From the basics of logging on to a computer print a resume, to hopping on free WiFi between meetings, to advanced things like operating a 3-D printer, libraries offer access to technology to those who have it at home, and those who don’t.
Of course there are many things that libraries do, and part of the problem we face in marketing is to boil those down for our audiences. So I welcome your comments in our Facebook Group, and feel free to use these at your library! You can support these with specific services, how to access them, statistics, and even stories of impact.
Here are some crowdsourced comments and ideas from our Facebook Group.
Great list! I would also suggest:
- Libraries are a place to connect (with others / ideas / technology, etc.)
- Libraries are a place of lifelong learning.
I think probably the biggest key message and one that is missing is that the library supports and promotes literacy. It is supposed to go without saying that we support literacy but with “more than just books” as a huge selling point for so many years it’s easy to forget that literacy is our bread and butter.
We recently reevaluated and redid our mission statement because we realized that despite being a library it said nothing about literacy.
I like to tell people that public libraries are the biggest provider of free content out there. More than streaming channels, more than YouTube, etc, due to the diversity of materials, and various types all in one place!
