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May 19, 2009

The librarians' challenge

I’ve been meaning to share what I learned at the New Jersey Library Association Annual Conference, where I spoke a week or so ago.

The first thing I learned is that librarians don’t wear black oxfords or arrange their hair in buns or look like someone who might have checked books out for your grandmother. The librarians I met were all pretty cool: smart, of course, but also very current on trends in information and communication.

And their challenges were very similar to those you face in reaching and engaging people, with a few exceptions. Here’s what they’re up against:

“We have a large staff spread out over several locations. It’s hard to keep everyone informed.”

“It’s tough to get buy-in from our board and the staff.”

“Information overload. People are too overwhelmed to pay attention.”

“One of our key groups is people with young children. But these parents are very hard to reach—they’re always juggling, so they don’t read the communication we send.”

“Our demographics are quite broad. How can we reach all these groups with one message?”

And here’s one you don’t hear every day:

“Students come to the library and fall asleep. They’re staying up way too late texting and Facebooking and playing video games. If they got more sleep, they’d pay more attention.”

Posted by Alison Davis at May 19, 2009 09:02 AM