Spectrum PR Column
November 1999
On Target PR
Joan Shear, Legal Reference Librarian, Boston College Law Library (Newton Centre, Massachusetts)
AALL Spectrum, Volume 4 No. 3 November 1999.
Many of us think we are selling our services and ourselves but our attempts may not always be hitting the mark. Even our best customers seem to have no idea what we are willing and able to do for them. Speaking at this year's AALL annual meeting in a program on "Law Firm Management Speaks Out About Their Library Expectations," Karen Knab (executive director of Sutherland Asbill & Brennan LLP) said, "We don't understand your skills, what you do, and how." (L.J. 9/1/99: 121.) And while Perry Glantz (an attorney at Holland & Hart in Colorado who spoke at the same program) admitted lawyers don't know enough about the value librarians bring to the firm, he also wondered, "Is it my fault for not thinking of the library, or the librarians' fault for not being visible?" He said, "We can debate who is responsible and whether it is fair, but the reality is that you need to sell yourself in a competitive environment because no one will do it for you." (L.J. 9/1/99:121.)
Here are some sure-fire
ideas for scoring a PR bull's-eye.
Become a Public Relations Sharpshooter
A shotgun approach to Public Relations often misses the mark. A beautiful
brochure that lists all the services you offer often gets filed away without
even being read by busy faculty members or senior partners. We need to
target our audience better and concentrate on SDI - selective dissemination
of information. Busy people don't want to be bothered with information
that they see as irrelevant. Be selective in who you send announcements
to. Send specific information that you know individual users will be interested
in instead of general announcements about new information or services.
Always keep your target audience in mind and be sure to discuss why this
is important for them in particular. Base it on your assessment of their
needs now, not some general notion that this would be good for them eventually.
It is the least urgent, not least important thing that gets cut as deadlines
close in on people.
Get 'Em in the Cross-Hairs
When we target specific groups, such as journal members and faculty research
assistants, people take advantage of our services such as specialty research
classes. Maybe it's because they only think it is worthwhile because we
are doing it as a special favor for them. Even though "We're only
doin' our jobs, ma'am," we want people to think that we are doing
something special for them, because we are. We are using our special knowledge
and skills to sort through the morass of information out there to deliver
the best information possible in the most efficient manner.
Value Your Marksmanship
Don't sell yourself too cheaply. Our students are entitled to research
consultations for as long as they need, but few students take advantage
of this service. Yet more than once someone has suggested to me that I
offer an hour of research consultation to be auctioned off to the law
school community at our Public Interest Law Foundation's annual fundraiser.
Some people do see the value in our services. Make sure others know that
we know our contribution is valuable.
This is even more important in for-profit situations where the bottom line is the bottom line. Request billing-codes to charge for your time when people request research services. People don't value what they can get for free.
Don't Ask the Target
to Move
It's not enough to do Public Relations within your library. You are marketing
your library and what we can do as librarians whenever you serve on a
law firm or law school committee. By being out there and visible we make
it more likely that they will think of us when their thoughts do turn
to research.
At Boston College we had a desire to present more bibliographic instruction to our law students in the classroom but no one wanted to take up us on our offer. At the Dean's Christmas Party one year, a faculty member who I had been working with on a law school project said (more or less), "Now that we're buddies what can you do to help my seminar students produce better research papers? Would you be willing to come to make a presentation to my seminar next semester?" I almost fell off my chair. He was asking me, as a special favor to him, to do what I had been trying to get a faculty member let me do for the past few years. Of course I said yes. And once we did it for one, others saw what we could do it, and wondered could we do it for their classes, too.
Find an Ally Who Can
Help Improve Your Aim
A number of years ago a friend was bemoaning that his company, in a cost-cutting
move, had decided to get rid of their in-house library staff. As a heavy
user of library services he knew what the bean counters didn't - that
the library staff saved him and his clients and the firm lots of money
by being efficient and effective researchers. He knew that if he needed
to buy that information from an information broker his costs would go
up, not down. I said to him, "Don't complain to me. Complain to management
and let them know what your out-sourcing information costs will be."
The company eventually rehired a library staff because it was just too
expensive to be without one. I'm sure that the original library staff
had argued just that point, but it didn't hit the target until the end
users joined the fight.
Having a faculty member say, "This is important," with both words and actions, such as giving up an hour of class time to your presentation, helps convince the students that research is important. While our bibliographic instruction workshops had been relatively well received, it was still a small percentage of the total student body that was participating. When a faculty member brings us to a class we get a captive audience. Getting the "faculty stamp of approval" increased the number of students we were reaching and increased their general use of library services as well.
Not properly targeting your PR can result in your publications going unread, your seminars being under attended, and staff cutbacks. Let's make sure we're on target by aiming our PR efforts at those who we need to reach, but getting a target in our sights, by having faith in our own abilities, by letting people feel we have done something special for them, by being more visible within the organization, and by encouraging our allies to help us get our message across. Then your PR activities will be sure to hit the mark.
Last Updated: January 28, 2003
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