Take It to the Street

Licensed databases are easier to use, their functionalities are expanding, and their content—especially full text—continues to grow. Authoritative content available anywhere, anytime—what's not to love? Nothing, except for low usage among our Google-crazed public.

As products have evolved, so has the capacity to let us track use. We have more accurate usage statistics with electronic content than we ever did with noncirculating reference books and periodicals. Statistical reports typically detail the number of logins, searches, and full-text documents retrieved. The downside to better statistics is that the results are often disheartening. Use of these premium resources remains alarmingly low, and with reporting data so readily available, a cost per search analysis is sure to raise questions with managers and, possibly, funders.

Such statistics may spur hasty reactions, such as discontinuing subscriptions or cutting electronic resource budgets. These actions are shortsighted. For one thing, the library must build trust with its customers, who, once accustomed to online research through the library, will expect to access this content on a regular basis. Also, librarians depend greatly on database access in reference work and expect the e-collection—like the print collections—not to disappear with little notice. Otherwise, they'll be reluctant to promote it.

To make an electronic collection work, the library must make a solid commitment to purchase, maintain, and especially promote its virtual collection. Library literature explores the licensing, management, and acquisition of electronic resources, but there has been little discussion on how to market them.

A promotional campaign to increase usage requires cooperation from several departments, including collection development, information technology, cataloging, public service, and public relations. Input from marketing specialists and vendors may be needed. Some promotional tactics require resources or technical skills. Vendors, who are equally vested since renewals are ultimately contingent upon usage, may also need to be involved.

Promoting e-content to the public involves several different steps. First, libraries must inform users and potential users about the valuable content we have that can meet their informational needs and that this content is usually available remotely, 24/7. Second, databases must be easy to find once users arrive at our web site. Finally, libraries need to employ additional products or technologies to create a seamless and easy environment for database research.

As Jean Evans explains ("Staff First," p. 10), the best place to begin a promotional campaign is with your own staff. The more involvement library staff members have with databases, the more likely they are to promote them to each other and to the public.

Libraries typically promote their e-resources through brochures. These brochures include brief descriptions and instructional information on the content of the products and how to access them. Libraries can also create subject-specific promotional pieces that aim to reach a target audience, such as the business community. Use traditional outlets, like the library newsletter, to explain and promote databases.

Brochures can work well for customers who make it into our buildings. But libraries need a more aggressive approach to reach potential users who may be unaware of database content. Two successful techniques include advertisements in local newspapers and a direct mail campaign. For more, see "Two Campaigns That Worked," p. 13.

Libraries can also create promotional material such as refrigerator magnets, mouse pads, and computer monitor clips, with catchy phrases to describe online research: "Your library on the Internet" or "Your library is just a click away." These items can be spread around the community, from schools to senior centers, reaching new users. For more ideas, visit the Public Information Office of the American Library Association.

Vendor-produced promotional materials can include product posters and bookmarks. Unfortunately, these materials usually include the vendor's web site, which can confuse library patrons who may try to access the database from that site. Since your goal is to promote the library and its content, adapt such materials or avoid using them.

Libraries may also wish to explore the use of dummy books to physically represent a database. Dummy books are used as placeholders on the shelf for an item housed in other locations and can include promotional material. This strategy would benefit the customer who prefers to browse shelves instead of searching the catalog and may work well to represent topical databases in subject areas like literature, business, or health.

Lastly, the library's web address should be included prominently on every library brochure, bookmark, and promotional piece. It should also be standard fare on the library's logo and stationery, as well as the library's front doors.

Target audiencesEach electronic resource that the library subscribes to has a potential audience. Find out who they are, then determine how to reach them. Begin by asking who could best use the information. For example, individual investors and investment clubs would want to use investment databases. Then uncover the groups or organizations that may be interested and find specific contacts. Invite organizations with web sites to link to the database pages, send promotional materials for internal distribution, invite groups to the library for an instructional meeting, speak about the databases at their next meeting, and offer online classes.

Librarians who communicate with their patrons through email can include embedded links to full-text articles or links to database web pages that serve as entryways to the e-resources. This works both through online newsletters or individual communications. Email signatures allow the sender to design a promotional message that can include text, links, and images.

Once your users make it to your web site, your databases should be easy to find. Look at your homepage critically. If a patron came to your site to use a database, how easy can it be found? The Phoenix Public Library, for example, prominently lists "databases & websites" at the top of its homepage, making e-content one click away.

Once users find your database page, use two approaches to present the content. First, provide access to the entire collection through an alphabetical list grouped by subject. Secondly, place individual databases on subject-related pages. For example, a web page for seniors may include links to medical or investment content.

Libraries that subscribe to more than one database from a single vendor should receive individual URLs for each product. Links to specific databases from, for example, a subject guide or pathfinder can then be created. By using direct links to the product, the customer bypasses a menu page that vendors typically set up for all of a library's subscriptions. Direct access to the electronic products removes at least one hurdle between the patron and the database.

Once patrons find the database, a brief description is essential. Use specific terms ("provides brief biographical information, including photographs of thousands of men and women from the 20th Century" instead of "provides biographical information"). As with annotations, the researcher should gather enough information to decide whether to use it. Libraries may also decide to provide links to tours or product guides from the description to the vendor's web site.

Keep the experience easy. Library patrons normally authenticate using their library card number and, in some cases, a personal identification number. Once the required credentials are confirmed, customers should be recognized for the remainder of their session. They should not have to input their credentials each time they select another database. Some libraries may also include separate links for users who log on from within the library and those who log on remotely. Access should be as seamless as possible, requiring the least amount of clicks.

Ideally, users should not have to configure their browsers. However, some libraries using proxy servers post instructions for customers working remotely. Additionally, some computer users have pop-up blockers enabled in their browser. Such blockers prohibit all links that open a new browser window, including library-created database links. Pages are designed this way so that once researchers finish searching a database they can close the window and the library web page is still available for further browsing. Since such pop-up links can be valuable, you must advise remote users to disable their pop-up blockers.

Whatever technical solutions your library employs for authentication, try to make the process as easy as possible for patrons. Otherwise, they aren't coming back.

Not every user will go directly to your database collection. For many users, the catalog remains an important discovery tool and thus another place to promote your electronic content.

There are several ways to integrate e-resources into the library catalog. If the MARC record is merely a representation of an item the library owns, then the library catalog can also be a discovery tool that offers links to e-content. Most vendors of aggregated databases provide libraries with the MARC records of full-text periodicals for free. Several challenges remain: maintaining MARC records as aggregator content changes often; creating single records for different versions or one bibliographic record with multiple versions; and displaying the same record from more than one vendor when the library receives overlapping content.

Each library will choose to implement these MARC records with the existing workflow. The University of Denver found a better way to integrate aggregator journal titles with traditional information resources through Gold Rush, a database maintained by the Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries (CARL). Gold Rush allows the serials unit to populate the OPAC with a single URL for each journal title.

Another way to make online periodical holdings more accessible is to create a collated list of full-text online journal titles to which the library subscribes. With such a list, library patrons and staff can easily determine a library's holdings; otherwise, they would have to visit vendor web sites.

Products like A-to-Z Titles Lists from Serials Solutions or EBSCO's A to Z List put forward the library's periodical holdings in all formats, including print, online, and microfilm. Lists can be alphabetical or grouped by subject. The service also tracks back file dates so researchers know how long specific titles are held. In many cases the link from the title of the periodical can connect researchers directly to the title record in the aggregator's database, or to the homepage of the database that includes the journal title.

Once our customers are using databases, we should make the experience as seamless as possible. Two tools that can make online research easier are link resolvers and federated searching.

Libraries have the capacity to connect customers to full-text collections through several related linking technologies. Link resolver software allows for reference linking from one article to another even when they are available in different vendor databases. For example, a researcher can link from an abstract or index entry in one database to the full text of the article in another vendor's product, a citation in an article to full text of that article, and even from a bibliography to the OPAC.The software is based on a NISO (National Information Standards Organization) standard for OpenURLs. Link resolvers identify the target (source to be queried) and a source (a database or catalog that is OpenURL compliant). Link resolvers connect collections and patrons at a reasonable cost. Link resolvers are available from ILS and periodical vendors. For more on link resolvers, see John McDonald and Eric F. Van De Velde's "The Lure of Linking ."

Implement Federated Searching

Federated searching (also known as metasearching or broadcast searching) offers customers the capacity to search multiple informational databases simultaneously. Customers see one search box. A keyword search will present a page with results from a variety of sources, including the ILS. From the results page, researchers can review documents or choose to enter the target's native interface.

There's a heated debate whether this capability should exist within the library catalog or if a separate tool is necessary to run it. Also at issue is the manner in which results are presented to the user (by format, product) and whether the results can be deduped (multiple occurrences of the same article). Nevertheless, the federated search exists as a discovery tool. It can help users become knowledgeable about the library's databases. They might enter the database to conduct a more targeted search. For more on federated searching, see Judy Luther's "Trumping Google? Metasearching's Promise ." Only when database content becomes easy to find and access can we expect usage to increase. As usage statistics increase and the library's return on investment is met, other positive outcomes will follow—such as a decrease in the amount of interlibrary loan requests. Making an online database available is as easy as creating a hypertext link. However, the bigger picture is how the library will promote a large number of disparate databases—each with its own content and accessibility issues. Do it successfully and your customer base will grow.