Look what we've got for you! – Promoting library collections

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Abstract

Librarians spend a lot of time and thought on the question "what to buy for the library?" to meet the users’ needs as best as possible. But what happens once a book or a database or a journal has made it onto the (virtual) shelf? How do users learn about new acquisitions or interesting holdings? In this talk we take a tour across collection-marketing activities by academic or research libraries, highlighting some successful examples and collecting ideas for reuse. Method: We scouted the internet presence of all IATUL member libraries, taking into account their websites and, if available, their web 2.0 / social media activities. We added findings from literature and from recommendations by colleagues. Results: Our data collection gives an overview of collection-marketing activities in academic libraries all over the world. In our talk, we discuss the different types of activities, present some examples that we consider interesting, and give insights into some experimental activities at one of the authors’ libraries. Limitations: We can only analyse the activities of those libraries that use a working language we can understand, which rules out some libraries that don’t have, e.g., a version of their website in English, German, French, or Scandinavian languages. Moreover, we only consider the perspective and activities of the libraries—but not the perspective and expectations of their users. An investigation asking whether they may have informational needs regarding collections that are not yet met by libraries would be an interesting complement to our study.

Speakers from the University of Münster

Voß, Viola

ULB Dez 4 Abt. 4.2 Geisteswissenschaften 2