These are two key skills that library professional needs in order to enhance the visibility of the library service and what it can offer; as well as improving service quality and user experience.
What is Promotions and Marketing and why is it important?
Marketing the library service is an important means of keeping it in the minds of users, as well as letting potential users know that the library is there, and has resources available to meet their needs or interests. Marketing and promoting as effectively as you can is the way to create a link between an information need in the mind of the user, and the way to meet that need, whether through using a particular resource, or taking advantage of one of the library’s services, or getting training that the library provides.
Effective marketing strategies can deliver a range of tangible benefits, both for the library service and the user:
- Higher usage – As more people gain awareness of the library and its services, and how the library can help them, more and more people will begin to use the library.
- Increased value – Showing the people at the top that the library provides value to the organisation as a whole encourages further investment in the library. This can be through showing that the service is cost effective, or by demonstrating how the library can actually provide savings to the organisation as a whole.
- Educated users – Demonstrating to users that there are information resources that go beyond simply using Google, and showing how to use them, ultimately leads to users improving their own skills in finding and retrieving information. This will empower them to go on to become independent users, better able to find information themselves, increasing their effectiveness to the organisation.
- Change in perception – Highlighting the resources and services that the library offers shows to users how relevant, necessary and beneficial the library is to them and the organisation.
Source: Marketing your library: The benefits for special libraries
What can we do?
Unless your library has a person dedicated to marketing, then it will be up to you to contribute to getting the word out there about your service and the things it can do to help your users. In this, it’s important to be aware of the different types of resource that are at your disposal to help you with this.
You may be invited to help contribute to producing a marketing strategy, which is intended to determine who you need to get the word out to, what you need to tell them, and how you go about doing it.
Source: What Is A Marketing Plan? What To Include & How To Start
N. Ellering
Once you have a strategy down, you will then want to think about the things you can do to achieve what you’ve laid out:
- Social media – Many libraries will have a presence on one or more social media platforms. While it can take time to build an audience through this route, it is an instant way of getting your message out there.
- Email shots or newsletters – If there is something specific to tell people about, such as an upcoming event, or a new resource, the organisation’s news channels can be effective, as you can reach both existing users, and potential users. Alternatively, contacting the library’s users directly through an email shot can also be a good method of getting the message directly to your users.
- Events – There may be an upcoming event being held that the library is invited to. If the library has freebies that can be given away, having a stall that you are at, inviting people to take your free stuff, is a way to then engage them to then talk about the library service and how it can help them.
- Displays – There will be events throughout the year – themed days, events about specific topics – that you can create displays about to show off your library’s collection and get people talking about the service.
What do I need to know?
NHS Library and Knowledge Services – A marketing materials bank is available to access from NHS England’s Library and Knowledge Services website.
- Social media – There is also a learning resource specifically aimed at helping use social media platforms to market your library service.
Knowledge for Healthcare (KfH) –This organisation, in collaboration with NHS England, provides resources of value with the aim of improving your library service. There is also a blog and KfH also provides a list of recommended books and other sources of information on promotion and marketing for health librarians.
- KfH Value and Impact Toolkit – A toolkit of resources that are designed to allow you to indicate the importance of your service to stakeholders, and the difference or change that results from contact with the library service.
Useful books:
- Library Marketing and communications: strategies to increase relevance and results – Cordelia Anderson
- Social Media for Creative Libraries – Phil Bradley
- Marketing your Library: Tools and Tips that Work – Carol Smallwood et al
- The Library Marketing Toolkit – Ned Potter
- Social Media Marketing: An Essential Guide – Chase Barlow
- Library Marketing Basics – Mark Aaron Polger
Who can I contact?
Have a discussion with your library colleagues about what the library is currently doing in terms of promotion and what it has done in the past.
Library events are great for networking opportunities and getting new ideas.
Sign up to your local network to receive emails from other library professionals sharing ideas and asking questions
Page last reviewed: 25 June 2025
Next review due: 25 June 2027
Health Libraries Group 