Marketing Critique



Chinook Arch Regional Library System (CARLS) is a public library system in southwestern Alberta, Canada.  Headquarters staff offer their member libraries operational support (technical, consulting, training and collections), information services (database subscriptions and reference, resource sharing, programming (summer reading, “Paperbacks by Mail”, multilingual book service, video conferencing), communications & marketing, and contract services for specific programs (interlibrary loans, “Books for Babies,” French language block collection rotation).  Within the “Chinook Arch Plan of Service for 2010 to 2012”--based upon needs assessments, user satisfaction surveys, Municipal Sustainability Plans, and other communications--is a committment to offer “web development,” “marketing materials, training and resources,” “website development” and a “web presence.” 

The web presence that CARLS provides education and training for allows its member libraries to try on whatever social media seems appropriate to reach and serve their users.  CARLS’ focus in its own social media use is to market and brand the region as a whole to patrons; and to communicate, educate and support regional library staff.

The most popular and widely accessed elements of CARLS’ social network strategy is its Twitter feed and its blog.  Both are facilitated by CARLS Consulting staff: the manager of Consulting Services (a librarian), the Automation Services librarian, the Technology Initiatives Librarian, the IT manager, and a consulting assistant. This team takes turns posting comments on the “Overarching Insights” blog, posting about once a week.  Topics include upcoming projects and events, libraries in the news, what they learned at conferences, and tips for best practice.  The intended audience is member library staff, volunteers and trustees.  The Twitter feed for “Chinooklibs” displays on Chinook Arch’s homepage, giving quick and meaning blurbs to all who use the site as their gateway to their library experience.  

Chinook Arch has a Facebook page which they do not advertise--perhaps because there is currently no strategy in place to manage the site.  Actually, CARLS has 3 Facebook pages, each bearing little activity and little definition.  The librarian who initiated the pages is currently on maternity leave.  However, over half of the 30 staff members at Chinook Arch headquarters have Facebook accounts and include their co-workers as Facebook friends, including Chinook Arch’s assistant director who advocates for his staff using social media (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Flock browser) to learn and to communicate in the workplace. Often, daily comments do not refer directly to workplace activity, but 14 of the 19 co-workers identify Chinook Arch as their workplace and occasionally refer to their workplace in their posts and status updates.

Another established but underused account is the Chinook Arch YouTube channel.  The site was created in July 2010 for video tutorials for library staff throughout the region.  CARLS HQ departments have been made aware of the channel and of the software and hardware available at HQ for tutorial creation.  Library managers have also expressed an interest in more online training which they can access asynchronously and remotely to avoid taking time away from their rural libraries.  Apart from Consulting Services, Interlibrary Loans has also created training videos which are intended for ILL staff throughout the province of  Alberta.  The ILL videos, however, have inexplicably disappeared from the Chinook Arch YouTube site.  ILL staff will be looking into this issue as they look to post more short videos this fall.

Chinook Arch was one of three library systems in the province of Alberta to receive a grant towards the RISE video conferencing project.  VC equipment was installed in all Chinook Arch libraries and HQ, and in 2010, over 3500 participants in these 3 regions took in over 800 video conferences.  Chinook Arch boasted in its 2010 Annual Report that the RISE network allowed libraries of any size or location to access information and programming available in larger centres.

Perhaps the biggest investment that Chinook Arch has made into user-focused social media is the overlay of BiblioCommons to its online catalog.  BiblioCommons is a library catalog interface--created by non-librarians!--which facilitates greater discovery and access to a library’s information, while enhancing the site with users’ comments, ratings, lists, tagging and user-to-user messaging.  The result of this has been happy reviews from patrons who love the prototypical web 2.0 features of BiblioCommons.  CARLS has also recently rolled out a mobile version of BiblioCommons, and uses both web and mobile versions of Overdrive, an e-book and audiobook service to deliver those formats.

Even if these efforts to implement social media were not conscious efforts at marketing Chinook Arch per se, the result has been that users are making the connection that CARLS libraries can deliver more of what they want--easy searching, attractive layout, ways to add their favourite items to lists, sharing opinions and comments with other users, and finding resources via the social aspect of the medium.  However, these implementations have been carefully strategized. The move towards BiblioCommons, the blog, Twitter feeds, and the YouTube channel was fuelled by the Needs Assessments and surveys conducted for the 2010-2012 Plan of Service.  The fact that library staff and library users have reported high satisfaction with CARLS technology initiatives and supplemental support suggests that use of social media will remain steady and likely increase due to ease of use and enjoyment of new features.  Chinook Arch has built a reputation as an administration that does the research and listens to its stakeholders.  The librarians at CARLS travel out to the member libraries several times a year to visit library staff and to attend board meetings.  Both online and face-to-face investments work together to show that Chinook Arch is invested in getting patrons the information they want and need in fun, satisfying and effective ways.  

If I had to give any advice to Chinook Arch for next steps in their social media strategy,  I would encourage the organization to make subtle enhancements to their BiblioCommons interface, allowing users to move from a failed item search to an interlibrary loan request.  This would align CARLS services with the recent “Alberta Public Libraries Technology Report” commissioned by the Government of Alberta Public Libraries Services Branch.  The report recommends “Transparent/Seamless Access to Public Library Holdings: Update and create services that realize transparent (i.e. ‘seamless’) access to all Public Library holdings for all Albertans.” CARLS staff report that plans are underway to move in this direction.  

As for the 3 underused Chinook Arch Facebook pages?  It’s okay to let them languish for now.  Library staff and patrons have many of their social and information needs met by the well-designed and function-rich BiblioCommons OPAC interface, and for now, that’s where the masses will gather to connect to library holdings, the blog, Twitter feeds, and each other.