Univ. of MD Leadership Institute
Ed Murray (emurray@connix.com)
Wed, 13 Aug 1997 17:54:40 -0400
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 1997 17:54:40 -0400
Message-Id: <199708132159.RAA02161@comet.connix.com>
From: Ed Murray <emurray@connix.com>
To: Multiple recipients of list <conntech>
Subject: Univ. of MD Leadership Institute
Supplicant dudes! Jim wants the meat of the matter. Amy wants to pick my
brain. I must steel myself and turn to the tome marked "copious notes."
-Amy, you'll enjoy corresponding with Tamas. He's got a good sense of humor
and enjoys a reputation for being mega-bright and good at what he does. He
was only given an hour to present so we we're rushed, but everyone was
impressed by him. (Of course many of us were library directors that don't
see much of the cyworld beyond email and website information posts!) He has
great enthusiasm for infoseek and collectanea.
Tamas would like to start selling the db that now drives
http://www.bcpl.lib.md.us/vcat.html (I think that's a test site and the
product is only at Baltimore County at this point.) He asked about the CT
market and asked me to pass on the availability of his software. As a
member of the Joint Project Review Group I found it ironic to watch him
simultaneously search CARL, Dynix, and LC websites during that presentation.
(This was before we spoke!)
-Jim, here's some meat. Rivkah Sass' program "Online Guerrillla Marketing
for Libraries" (with her apology to Jay Conrad Levinson, author of Guerrilla
Marketing Online) had the most application to me and New London. I flew
home from Dulles knowing that I need to revive our website and add some
suggested bells and whistles. They transcend placing and notification of
holds by email, and email quick reference. She suggests push techniques to
inform patrons of new titles at the library with email lists customized by
reading preference, e.g. romance, mystery, history. Sites can include
librarians' picks and links to book titles. Some bookseller sites feature a
"Reader's who bought this book also bought..." link which we could easily
imitate while maintaining reader confidentiality.
One of her suggestions that also intrigued me was the library retailing of
books. New London PL is a wildly independent and entrepreneurial 501 (c)(3)
that derives 20% of its revenue from sources other than our service area
government. Most of the other Institute participants are governmental units
however and had a visceral reaction against the idea.
I told Rikvah that I'd take time to consider the idea as a continuing
fundraiser. (I also don't care to become an issue in an election year!)
Here are the surprises for the week. Joey Rodger of the Urban Libraries
Council told us not to feel guilty. She told us that everything was not our
fault. We never hear this! I was so floored that I fought to sit next to
her at lunch.
Then there were the conversations with our colleagues at dinner and in the
pool. Tom Mayer of Sno-Isle (WA) has an 18 million dollar operating budget.
Ed McCabe in Gwinnett County (GA) spends 2 million dollars a year on books.
When a Grisham title is released he buys 800 copies of them! They're
delivered the day they're printed and cataloged and processed in one day.
-Hey, I'm going to sell that guy some books!
------------------------------------------
Ed Murray, Director
New London Public Library
63 Huntington St., New London, CT 06320
Voice: (860)447-1411 Fax: (860)443-2083