Jennifer Burke contributed the Tech Tools and Hacks column from 2016 through 2018. All these years, she’s been the president of her own training and consulting company, IntelliCraft Research, LLC, as well as an active member of SLA. Jennifer also worked with MLS editor Kathy Dempsey to launch the Library Marketing and Communications Conference (LMCC), which will hold its 10th annual conference in November 2024.

I’ve seen library marketing shift in two main areas over the last 20 years since I earned my M.L.S.—technology and our marketing mindset. It’s not just the shift in the digital technologies inside of libraries (ebooks, electronic resources, digital signage, the Library of Things, podcasting studios, makerspaces, and more). There’s been a major change in the technology that is used for creating marketing materials and for sharing messages.

Look at the rise of social media marketing. We’ve seen platforms like Facebook, Twitter/X, Instagram, and TikTok reach billions of people. These tools have given libraries ways to reach wider and wider audiences while simultaneously targeting their local communities and next-door neighbors. Today’s targeting ability is something that used to be available only to the biggest consumer-goods advertisers and for large sums of money. Now, library marketers can promote events or services to their followers, in their own communities, for just dollars per day.

Of course, since technology keeps changing, the social platforms change at a breakneck pace, and it can be maddening trying to keep up. Whole new subfields of training, continuing education, and job roles now exist that didn’t before. I remember that one of the most popular sessions at our first Library Marketing and Communications Conference (LMCC) in 2015 was on social media. Attendees were sitting on the floor and along the walls of the session room, even spilling out into the hallway, eager to hear every piece of advice because they had tuned into how important this newish technology was.

I also remember the debates we had as we planned programming for subsequent LMCC events and continued to receive proposals on a variety of social media topics. Some planners asked, “Do we need another one of these again this year?” The answer was, “Oh yeah, we do!” because so much changes every year. In fact, sessions on social media remain some of the most popular ones at each LMCC. There’s always something to learn, to experiment with, to test, and to try again.

The other major change, in our field’s mindset, has become apparent. I recollect the long-ago discussions among some library professionals that the very term “marketing” was somehow “icky” and that such a task was unnecessary for such a revered institution as a library. I thought then—and now—hogwash! A core theme in the professional development trainings I’ve offered over the years is that “Marketing is strategic storytelling, and who knows stories better than library pros?”

Early on, yes, marketing activities were being assigned as just one more thing that an overworked librarian had to take on. This was before anyone realized they needed dedicated professionals do that kind of work.

But that has been changing for a number of years. Even at the earliest LMCC events, we started to see attendees whose main role was marketing. We talked to former journalists who were hired into public and academic libraries because of their communication skills and content creation abilities. More libraries were hiring people who had true graphic design skills and teaching them library-ese, rather than relying on their staffers to make their own (subpar) fliers. Social media work got its own team. Then libraries branched into video production, leaned into trends, and started following best practices in marketing.

It’s been many years since anyone I know in the library marketing field said marketing was an icky word. These days, I hear more and more that library systems of various sizes are hiring professionals for their specific marketing or communications skills. I see that as a large mindset shift on the part of those in charge.