Welcome to the Library Marketing Book Club

Hi, everyone. For what it’s worth, here’s how this book club came to be.

In 2015, I joined Jacksonville Public Library (in Jacksonville, Florida) as the Assistant Director for Community Relations and Marketing. The department is responsible for marketing, public relations and communications for the library system (21 locations throughout Duval County in Northeast Florida, 450 employees, around 700,000 library cardholders).

My team has graphic designers, writers/multimedia marketers, website management and a few part time roles. I’d read several books on marketing and related topics and thought it would be good for teambuilding and professional development if we tried reading a book each month and discussing it. I bought copies of the books for my team so by the end of each year or whenever they would have great personal libraries of the books we read.

It was a blast!

We read several marketing books and as many that were more marketing-adjacent but well aligned with things that would be helpful to them and the library. Favorites included Grit by Angela Duckworth, Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, and Delivering Happiness by the late Tony Hsieh.

Due to some changes the departmental club ended, but I still enjoyed reading the marketing books and thought it would be a great experience to share with fellow library marketers. Not only would this give another outlet for library marketers to discuss the discipline and profession, but it has the potential to elevate library marketing and ultimately deliver the right message to the right library customers so they can achieve their own goals.

I set up a Facebook group, shared it in a few places, and it was off and running.

Mad props to Angela Hursh’s Super Library Marketing Blog (check out her YouTube Channel!), and to the Association of College and Research Libraries Library Marketing and Outreach Interest Group on Facebook for helping the group grow.

Thanks for reading this article! Look forward to seeing you in the club!

• Chris Boivin