The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.
—Socrates
In various places in this book I have referred to the difficulty librarians encounter regarding their image. There is a landfill of literature on the topic, and out-of-date and sometimes offensive stereotypes not only persist, but are also still actively applied to our profession. The misunderstood nature of what we do is stubbornly persistent, and I have long tired of trying to tell people what I do to faculty, students, and friends alike. Justification to others takes a lot of energy and, in the end, just does not make a difference. When I made the transition into embedded librarianship, I felt it was a great fit for me, personally, long before I believe it convinced others who simply did not understand. I would turn up the corner of my lips in a strained smile at the questions or the references to embedded journalists. In essence, I have always believed that the best advertisement for what we do is to do it, and engage in it the best way possible every single day. The years leading up to my role as an embedded librarian and the semesters actually spent doing it did not widely change the perception of librarians, particularly on campus, but it helped. I realized that a more strategic approach was in order and I began to explore ways to exploit what I was doing in a personal way that people could connect to and understand, since the concepts would be attached to me personally, and then understood in a wider, more global way. As my director has always said, “What is good for one librarian is good for us all.”1
Mon and Harris2 have written about the “invisibility” of the librarian and the difficulties of recognition despite our best efforts. Obviously simply doing what we do is not good enough. My own strategies came out of my frustration of being consistently misunderstood by nearly everyone that I was not working directly with. And I knew that if I could successfully market my own practice, it would help to provide both a framework and a platform for my colleagues, each of whom, though not (yet) fully embedded, continues to embrace many of the principles and practices of embedded librarianship in their respective liaison departments.
Personal branding, far from being a narcissistic pursuit, is an important step in creating your professional self. Rampersad calls one’s personal brand “the synthesis of all the expectations, images, and perceptions it creates in the minds of others when they see or hear your name.”3 He goes on to give examples of several people who upon simply hearing a person’s name can evoke the essence of their professional lives, such as Tiger Woods, Bill Gates, Einstein, and Mother Teresa. And while it would have been unlikely that Mother Teresa would have even thought of professionally branding herself, the work that she did in the slums of Calcutta and her authenticity did that for her. Rampersad goes on to say, “Your personal brand should be authentic; reflect your true character; and be built on your values, strengths, uniqueness, and genius. If you are branded in this organic, authentic, and holistic way, your personal brand will be strong, clear, complete, and valuable to others.” I would add that it could also influence, in the right direction, decision makers and others.4
While many librarians may recoil at the term customers as it is applied, particularly to those we serve in academia, in essence that is what they are. We can call them patrons, customers, or either, though because I work in a university, I call them “students” and “faculty.” I believe that when we are “selling” or “marketing” ourselves, terms matter; in fact, they matter a lot. Calling those we teach “customers” places us, once again, in the mind’s eye simply and solely in the position of being limited to provide “service.” This is perhaps even more detrimental in the case of embedded librarianship, where we strive to fully collaborate in the teaching/learning cycle and to encourage future collaboration as well. Those providing service (those in true service professions would most likely attest to this) are rarely seen as equals, or in fact, consciously respected, by those whom they serve. If promoting embedded librarianship is to consist of, among other things, personal selling techniques and branding, then the way we see ourselves in our roles and the way we communicate that to those in our campus community is important. It starts with us, with who we are.
One of the most interesting aspects of collaboration with faculty in the classroom is being one of the actual faculty in the classroom. At my university my colleagues and I are ranked as assistant professors, and though I think the tide is turning, few see us as true equals, and some might question if we really are. Many discussions among us have been focused on how we are to “be” assistant professors; in other words, how do we enact our roles so that we are seen to be “fit” for our titles? When thinking about marketing, our services, our libraries, and ourselves, actually cast us in a different light. Faculty, for instance, have no need for advertising, per se, unless it is for a new course offering. How do embedded librarians promote themselves and their services in a dignified, attractive, and enticing way? If librarians would engage in personal branding, they will not only promote themselves, but their services as well.
A recurring theme in this book and one of the most important aspects of embedded librarianship is the fact that relationships are of the utmost importance when attempting to both begin and maintain such a deep interconnected collaboration. Ulla de Stricker, information consultant, drives this point home when she asserts: “Let me just say it now: Marketing isn’t our issue. Relationships are. Marketing is misunderstood and misplaced if it isn’t seen as a natural consequence of everything else we do. . . . In other words, if relationships are done right, marketing takes care of itself.”5
Finley points to “mixed concepts” in marketing techniques for librarians, but makes a distinction with what he terms personal selling since “it provides opportunities to interact directly with the customer.”6 Again, while I object to the term customer, I believe that any time a librarian can effectively communicate with those we seek to collaborate with, the better it is. A personal brand is about embracing the totality of who you are as a person and a professional.
In my own practice I used personal selling techniques to not only “advertise” my services and those of the library, but to also increase confidence in the capability of my colleague librarians in general. We have recognized the need to be more high-profile, not only in our professional pursuits on campus, but in campus activities and committees as well. When the campus community knows who you are in another context, they are more likely to reach out to you for your services as a colleague.
One of my colleagues, Calvin, is an extremely social person, perhaps the most social among us. The rest of us, in our own way, could be seen as the prototypical or stereotypical librarians—a bit on the quiet side, spectacled and focused. But Calvin, from the beginning, was a different breed. As our university’s only science librarian he has his work cut out for him, as he liaises, by himself, with the most departments both on campus and our campuses off-site. He has been encouraging all of us for years to integrate ourselves into the campus more fully. He serves on various committees, does an incredible amount of information literacy sessions, and likes to hobnob with just about anyone. On any given day he would be playing Frisbee on the Haber Green, the beautiful lawn area that is the center of campus, with any number of students, or riding his unicycle and waving to just about everyone that he sees. Calvin has softened and humanized the perception of himself as a librarian and has been able to make many inroads into various collaborative efforts on campus. Others and I believe that he has been so successful in his efforts because he puts himself forward in ways that are open and welcoming. He believes that being so well integrated personally on campus has helped him to be successful professionally. In fact, I credit Calvin with helping to move us in the direction of the high-profile status on campus that we enjoy today. While Calvin has never spoken in particular of “branding” in regard to his personal and professional self, it is clear to those who know him (which is just about everyone) that he is an authentic person, professionally invested in his work. All of the aspects of Calvin’s personality and activities reflect the act of branding.
In my own experience my route to embedded librarianship was not at all straightforward. I was known on campus, but not half as integrated as I would have liked to be, as I knew I needed to be. And I was very sure that I did not want my embedding experience to be a one-off, and that I wanted to be able to develop a professional and academic collaborative practice that would be sustainable. And that meant that I needed buy-in from those I wanted to work with and the department in which they resided. Since we were not ready to institute an actual embedded program on campus, personal selling techniques and personal branding made more sense to me than traditional “marketing” strategies. People needed to know me, and I had to distinguish myself, though not in a phony, trumped-up way, but instead, I needed to express myself by integrating my personal and professional personas. I aimed to build trust with the campus community in an intentional and thoughtful way. Branding is not a series of homemade posters, fliers tacked up in the dining hall or on classroom walls, games or gimmicks more suited to elementary classrooms, or any other number of outdated ways that librarians used to tout themselves and library services. I remember one librarian telling me with pride that at her small university library, everyone who checked out a laptop got a lollipop—she called it “Lollipops and Laptops”—so as to build a friendly reputation with students. While well meaning, this does nothing to dispel the persistent stereotypes and can actually do more harm personally and to the profession in the long run. And while being friendly and approachable is an admirable goal for anyone in any profession, and we definitely aim for that, doing so in a way that respects our users’ experience is of the utmost importance.
Know who you are: Does this seem obvious? It should be, but in a world full of image-making, artifice, and the cult of the personality, people are often more conscious of who they want to be, and often not in a thoughtful and constructive way—but instead, they want to be who they are not; and that, we know, never works. Know who you are and be who you are. Write down your good qualities and exploit them. Write down your weak points and vow to work on them. Authenticity is an incredibly attractive quality in a person. And when you are who you say you are, you will exude trust and show yourself trustworthy. And relationships are built and maintained on trust.
Love what you do: If you don’t, you are in the wrong profession. Anything less than love and it will show on your face and in the work that you do.
Dedicate yourself to what you do: It takes time and dedication to do our jobs well. I remember being told in high school by a teacher I greatly admired that those with jobs tend to be unhappy because they do them out of necessity, not out of love. A profession is something you train for, are educated to become. Librarians have been educated to do what we do. Professional development, conferences, and collaboration with colleagues, among other strategies, will enhance your professional life and those with whom you come in contact in your campus community.
Identify who you want to reach: Branding is meant to communicate an integrated self, but there will be a department on campus that you may want to target in order to develop a working relationship. Craft the way you communicate your target group, which may have different objectives than another group. You will still be who you are, but your communication will be shaped in a different way for your target group.
Be clear about what you would like to communicate and cultivate your communication style: I can be chatty with those I know, but I’d rather listen.
Create short-term and long-term strategies for developing your brand: I am a dyed-in-the-wool introvert and shy, but I happen to be very gregarious in the library. Out of it, not so much. I decided as a short-term goal that it would be easier to get to know faculty by engaging them in a friendly atmosphere, where we could get to know one another. I decided that showing up in the faculty dining room would place me in situations that were not intimidating to me. This short-term goal worked and help to ease me into the long-term goal of working more closely with my liaison departments.
Be consistent: Be who you are every day. Inconsistency in any way will tarnish your professional reputation and create confusion as to who you are and what you represent.
Recognize that your brand is your reputation and nothing less: Your reputation is everything. And once it is damaged, it is a long climb back to respectability and trust.
The cover of a recent The Nation issue featured an article on librarians challenging the National Security Agency and had a title that proclaimed: “Not your grandmother’s librarian!” The profession has gone through a sea change in recent years, and it is time that our brands caught up with those changes. One can see evidence of branding nearly everywhere. Branding has been around for a long time and can be misunderstood as egoism, which it is not. Branding is the controlling and managing of the information we want others to know about us. For embedded librarians in the classroom, that is an invaluable aspect of what we do: when we do what we do in the best way that we can, students and faculty alike will notice. And talk about it!
NOTES
1. Personal conversation with Dr. Jeanne Buckley, Arcadia University.
2. Lorri Mon and Lydia Eato Harris, “The Death of the Anonymous Librarian,” The Reference Librarian 52, no. 4 (2011): 352−64.
3. Hubert K. Rampersad, “A New Blueprint for Powerful and Authentic Personal Branding,” Performance Improvement 47, no. 6 (2008): 34−37.
4. Ibid.
5. Ulla de Stricker, “Relationships R Us: Climbing Up the Value Chain,” Information Outlook 4, no. 11 (2000): 30−33.
6. Wayne E. Finley, “Using Personal Selling Techniques in Embedded Librarianship,” Journal of Business & Finance Librarianship 18, no. 4 (2013): 281.
Badke, William. “Why Information Literacy Is Invisible.” Communications in Information Literacy 4, no. 2 (2011): 129−41.
De Saez, Eileen Elliott. Marketing Concepts for Libraries and Information Services. 2nd ed. London: Facet, 2002.
Finley, Wayne E. “Using Personal Selling Techniques in Embedded Librarianship.” Journal of Business & Finance Librarianship 18, no. 4 (2013): 279−92.
Gall, Dan. “Librarian like a Rock Star: Using Your Personal Brand to Promote Your Services and Reach Distant Users.” Journal of Library Administration 52, nos. 6-7 (2012): 549−58.
Knight, Valerie R., and Charrisa Loftis. “Moving from Introverted to Extraverted Embedded Librarian Services: An Example of a Proactive Model.” Journal of Library & Information Services in Distance Learning, 6, nos. 3-4 (2012): 362−75.
Kranich, Nancy, Megan Lotts, and Gene Springs. “The Promise of Academic Libraries Turning Outward to Transform Campus Communities.” College & Research Libraries News 75, no. 4 (2014): 182−86.
Markgren, Susanne. “Ten Simple Steps to Create and Manage Your Professional Online Identity: How to Use Portfolios and Profiles.” College & Research Libraries News 72, no. 1 (2011): 31−35.
Mon, Lorri, and Lydia Eato Harris. “The Death of the Anonymous Librarian.” The Reference Librarian 52, no. 4 (2011): 352−64.
Nalani Meulemans, Yvonne, and Allison Carr. “Not at Your Service: Building Genuine Faculty-Librarian Partnerships.” Reference Services Review 41, no. 1 (2013): 80−90.
Pell, John, Sarah Ward, and Margaret Bausman. “Can’t Get No Satisfaction: Lessons Learned While Developing an Assessment of Faculty Awareness and Attitudes toward Library Services.” In conference proceedings of the City University of New York Office of Library Services Conference, Reinventing Libraries: Reinventing Assessment: Innovative Practices and Ideas That Challenge the Status Quo, June, vol. 19 (2014).
Shea, Erin. “Taking Stock of Your Institution’s Marketing Efforts.” Reference & User Services Quarterly 54, no. 3 (2015): 27.