Creating Your Library Brand

by Elisabeth Doucett

From McDonald's arches to Nike's swoosh, logos are part of the everyday landscape. These are the visual representations of brands' extensive marketing stories, defining the meaning and message of the company. Branding is one part of the marketing process that focuses on developing a laser-clear message and the means to communicate that message to the intended audience. But as a library, where does branding fit? In the new media mix, libraries need to stand up and effectively communicate their benefits as a preferred provider of information and entertainment resources. By following the step-by-step guidance of Doucett, branding pro turned librarian, libraries can begin to develop branding that makes a difference. With branding scaled and tailored to the nonprofit public library arena, this guide The book covers everything from working with outside experts to evaluating and maintaining your library's brand, illustrated by case studies from other libraries. For those who have made a start, the chapters stand on their own―librarians can pick up wherever they left off. End-of-chapter exercises enhance the feedback process. Tips, suggestions for success, and answers to frequently asked questions ensure your team collaborates on a library brand that will bring more patrons through the door!

Genres: Nonfiction, Professional Development

140 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Elaine · Rating 2 out of 5]

A good introduction if this really is Step 1 in your approach to the whole branding thing. It provides a very light overview of the steps of the basic process of deciding on an approach, though it feels rather like it boils down to "once you know what you want, hire out." This is also most workable for a small public library that has more latitude in what they can do with their branding and when (or for library system directors, I guess). This isn't really for your everyday librarian who's trying to figure out how to make the library and its offerings stand out more.

The author occasionally makes nods towards other types of libraries, like academic libraries, but these are not explored, and we do have a very different structure to work with: at my college, we already have a style guide that affects what kind of branding we can do, and we're very limited in how we can stretch logos and taglines and things.

I did like Chapter 6 on defining your library's story and what your message is (my department leadership met last summer to try to settle on a vision statement, which was certainly a good amount of work). I flagged a few other places that had some helpful nuggets to keep in mind, but on the other hand, there were whole chapters I barely skimmed.

[Tamara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Note: I wish the case studies in the back had been more extensive and shown more visual examples.

Useful Information:

A brand is shorthand for the story that an organization wants to tell potential users about how it can meet a need in their lives.

You need to make sure that your audience understands your message not only because it is clear but also because they care about the message.

Your brand's message has to be remembered quickly and easily.

A great brand has a visual identity (logo) that supports the brand story in a powerful, attention-getting, visual terms.

If you find that your message starts to look like a laundry list of services that your library offers, it is a warning to stop and rethink.

Make sure your message is honest.

[Jeremiah Stover · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book, written by a librarian (who had been a marketing manager for several large corporations) for librarians provides a nice basic introduction to branding, marketing and related concepts. It starts with taking your message and audience and uses that to create a Logo, and color scheme. From there it briefly refers to applying the branding to you message in web and print. Overall it provides an excellent introduction to branding from a libraries perspective. I didn't find it comprehensive enough to recommend it as the only resource, but considering the page count it does a surprisingly good job.

[Miss Kelly · Rating 2 out of 5]

You hear the catch phrase "branding" Not a big fan, skimmed book. Remined me of being back in school. Good book for a task force group - there are goals and objective and activies for a group to come up with a brand. "Just do it!" as Nike say with their 'check mark' brand! "What is a brand? Technically, a brand is a mark, or logo, combined with specific colors and fonts, that identifies a particular product or service to potential users. More generally, a brand is shorthand for the story that an organization wants to tell poetential users about how it can meet a need in their lives. " p.3

[E Smith]

read this for class. useful for libraries already convinced of a need for branding. suggests a strategy for the process, does not help define what elements make a good brand or give much practical advice for choosing colors, visuals, or logos.

[Liz De Coster · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good walk-through of the process of creating a library brand, though I wish there had been more case studies.

[Rachel Sides · Rating 3 out of 5]

Perhaps I rated this too low because through reading the book I learned I need more than branding; I need a marketing plan. At any rate it did not meet my needs.