Maria Bonn From U. of Illinois GSLIS Shares “Strategies for Enhancing the Discovery of Open Access Content”

Readers of infoDOCKET know that we often write (and speak about) about the importance of marketing in libraries of all types. If we don’t market/sell/promote our skills and services, who will? So, we especially like the following two paragraphs from Bonn’s 657 word column.
From the October 2015 (76.9) Issue of College and Research Libraries News

Many libraries have a historically uneasy relationship to activities that might appear to be “marketing.” Most are in the business of services, not sales. While they are happy to promote services, they are uncertain about approaches to marketing products and publications. Libraries are also not systematically and strategically applying their long-held and well-developed skills in connecting users to information to the task of connecting readers to library publications.
If libraries were to apply such skills to OA discovery, there is a tremendous opportunity for them to yield considerable benefits and to perform significant service. To do so requires a cultural shift away from the mindset of “What are we to make of this stuff out there on the web?” to accepting OA publications as legitimate and valuable additions to our collections. Perhaps we need to adopt a mindset of “Good stuff! Free! Our users will like this!” Achieving this will not be without its challenges.

Read the Complete Column by Maria Bonn (657 Words)

Filed under: Academic Libraries, Libraries, News, Open Access, Patrons and Users