Marketing & Trendforschung in Bibliotheken

Posted on | March 2, 2007 | 2 Comments

Im Rahmen des Marketing-Ratgebers für Bibliotheken habe ich zwei lesenswerte Interviews geführt – und zwar mit zwei Frauen, die Innovation mit Stärken der Bibliothek zu kombinieren versuchen: Barbara Galik von der Cullom-Davis Library an der Bradley University (IL, USA) und Helene Blowers von der Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County (NC, USA). Einen Auszug aus diesem Interview gibt es im folgenden Abschnitt.

M. Buzinkay: Trendforschung ist nicht gerade eine weit verbreitete Tätigkeit im Bibliotheksmanagement. Warum sind Sie der Meinung, dass Trend-Analysen für Bibliotheken als Non-Profit-Organi-sationen wichtig sind? Wäre es nicht viel einfacher, Trends zu folgen als sie zu entwickeln?

B. Galik: Libraries need to be aware of trends to be able to better serve their constituents. While this question is directed at public libraries, I believe this is even more important at university or college libraries. Our mission is different from public libraries. We exist to support the teaching and research needs of the university faculty, students and staff.
But we also exist to assist our customers in becoming life long learners. We need to use every tool at our disposal to achieve this mission and that often means stepping beyond our comfort zone to explore new trends and take that leap of faith into the unknown. We attempt to be slightly ahead of the curve and have what our constituents need before they even need it.

H. Blowers: Since public libraries serve and support the total population (as opposed to the more specialized markets or targeted user groups — Example: elementary schools primarily serve k-5 students — I think the need to keep a breast of emerging trends is even more imperative.
These include trends on almost anything from cultural changes in communication, education and information sharing to swings in user preferences and evens fads. Libraries have always served as institutions that have been reflective of their community’s values. But as technology and emerging trends have a greater influence on these values, the need to continually reevaluate services and offerings needs to be built-in strategic planning.
M. Buzinkay: Wie integriert die Bradley University bzw. integrieren die PLCMC ihre Ergebnisse aus der Trendforschung in die eigene Unternehmensstrategie?

B. Galik: There is no official way of integrating trend research into our strategy. We monitor trends in a variety of fields and determine which trends we think will be of importance in the future. We then use these trends to focus our future goals.

H. Blowers: PLCMC’s strategic planning process is continuous and involves many methods of evaluation and research that helps us keep on top of trends. Here in United States we’re fortunate to also have several library organizations that continually scan the greater landscape such as OCLC (siehe Link unten), for emerging trends across all types of libraries.
But the need to integrate our own research for our local community is also important. To do this we’ve employed many methods including customer surveys, online statistical analysis, and focus groups. In addition to scanning the library landscape, I believe it’s also important to scan for trends outside of the profession. As technology director for the library, I am continually incorporating emerging trends from not only different enterprise units, such as business and education, but also among user groups, such as teens and aging baby-boomers.
This analysis affects our annual SSP (System-wide Strategic Planning) process as we set new priorities and determine new projects for each fiscal year.
Den Rest des Interviews können Sie im Marketing-Ratgeber für Bibliotheken nachlesen – er ist als kostenloser PDF-Download erhältlich.

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