Developing a Customized
Database of Users as a Tool for Marketing the Library
Cynthia G.
Manley, M.S.L.S
Oak Ridge
National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee
Special libraries exist to provide service to customers within their organizations. They must provide resources and services that meet the specific needs of their parent organization. This is an especially challenging task in the current environment of swiftly changing technology and shrinking budgets. It means that libraries must ensure that users are aware of the services and resources that are available if they are to use them. In order to do this, libraries employ marketing strategies and activities. Marketing has become an even more important activity in the electronic age because library users tend to assume that information is free on the Web, and this challenges librarians to demonstrate the value of their collections and services. Librarians recognize that to effectively market library services they must be able to anticipate customer demands and satisfy them before their competitors do.
Marketing consists of a series of activities that begin with identifying the needs of the individuals and groups that form the library’s service community. The literature stresses several key steps for developing a successful marketing strategy. They include establishing a clear mission, gathering information about customers and their needs, and establishing tactical plans and monitoring the progress of the strategies that have been implemented.
An important part of any marketing strategy is to research the needs of the service community and to match those needs with the competencies of the library, being very careful to set user expectations at a realistic level. Libraries have frequently gathered certain types of statistics – for example, the number of circulating books or volume of interlibrary loan. Some statistics however, particularly in the reference environment, have been more difficult for librarians to capture and analyze.
A selective review of the literature was helpful in identifying how library use has been measured. A variety of methods have been used to reveal how well libraries are serving their customers. These include circulation statistics, counts of attendance at library programs and workshops, Internet use, telephone renewal, and reference questions. The majority of libraries can get a statistical picture of their customers from circulation and interlibrary loan statistics, but they often cannot determine, in any specific detail, who is using reference services, how those services are being used, and which customers rely on which products. Such information becomes critical in a library that has a multifaceted customer base. Services and products cannot be adapted effectively to meet the constantly changing customer base if that base remains undefined.
The Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) Library staff recognized that acquiring accurate and detailed information about library customers was the first step in the marketing process. This paper discusses the development of a database as a tool for collecting data about library customers to determine who uses the library and which services and products they use. Information compiled within the database can be used to create an individual customer profile, or a profile of specific target groups that use the library. Specifically the database was designed to track the results of reference interactions. Major objectives in developing this database were to look for ways to promote all library services to the customer and to look for ways to improve communication between the library and current and potential customers. When analyzed, these data, rich in customer details and preferences, would give the library the capability to target groups for specific educational or promotional efforts. Moreover, they would give library managers a tool to anticipate the needs of their customer base.
Since its inception in 1948, the Library has helped the scientists and engineers at ORNL carry out research of national importance. ORNL is a multi-program science and technology laboratory, and the library must ensure that its services and products meet the multiple research agendas of the laboratory and also provide information to members of the public that use the Library. The Laboratory is organized into 16 major divisions that are made up of 120 research groups focusing on different research areas. Since the Library is supported through overhead funding, it must compete with other groups for resources.
Technological changes, shifts in research priorities, and decreased funding have impacted the way the library serves its customers. In discussions with laboratory management about the Library’s effectiveness, librarians had strong anecdotal evidence showing that researchers valued reference services, but they could not provide any information about the groups that used library services and products most often. For reference services, the only statistical information available came from tick marks kept at the reference desk. There was no qualitative information on the reference interaction, and the more protracted interactions involving librarians working on projects with researchers were not captured in the Library’s system. It proved difficult to justify funding for reference services or to market to customers who used the library infrequently.
The Library
staff recognized that a link exists between satisfied customers and library services,
and in 1999, they became more actively involved in trying to improve customer
service. It quickly became clear that
what was lacking in improving customer service and meeting customers’ needs was
having precise information about the customers who used the library. The library staff were also concerned about how to best
utilize its resources. Allocation of
staff time to the reference desk was an important consideration because
inappropriate staffing levels can have undesirable consequences. Understaffing
can be damaging because customers do not receive the service and assistance
needed. Overstaffing can be damaging to a library’s image if the groups being
served perceive the library as overstaffed, particularly during times of
economic stress.
It is essential for a library to know its customer base and to know what services and products they use. The library profession has always been concerned with collecting and analyzing statistics for decision-making. Knowing what resources and products are used allows librarians to manage the library more accurately. Our review of the literature gave us some insights regarding how other libraries collected and analyzed data for decision-making and some of the marketing strategies they used. We wanted to be able to systematically gather pertinent data about library users and their interactions with library resources and products. Specifically we wanted to know more about the services and products our customers used rather than the book and interlibrary loan orders they were placing. We wanted to gain some idea regarding the success and quality of our reference interactions, not only anecdotally, but statistically as well. Such information is a powerful tool when making a budgetary case for change.
The “Customer Registry Database” was conceived to meet our need to gather this information. It was designed as a database subset that could handle the input and output on reference services and customer activity within the existing library automation system. It was critical to merge this information with our existing system because reporting mechanisms were already in place to track circulation and acquisition activity.
The Customer Registry Database was designed to be a knowledge–based system that holds critical information about library customers – the systems they access, the requests they have made, and the services they use. Reference services were a primary focus of the system since the library’s automation system already captured many other customer interactions.
The library’s automation system already contained basic information about all ORNL personnel who were potential library customers. Thus, it was a logical choice to work within the existing automation system, rather than create a separate database. In the past we had experimented with separately created databases for handling electronic reference or reference interactions. We found that the main impediment for the librarians was that the database was not integrated into existing systems and therefore not part of the normal workflow.
Once the decision was made to use the existing library automation system, it was necessary to program functionality into the system to allow for handling the electronic reference services, reference desk inquiries, and patron usage of other library services. There were several requirements and design features that the database would need to incorporate. It needed foremost to be easy for the staff to use, since they would be manually entering some of the data. Pull-down menus allowed for easy data input. These menus included selections regarding the nature of the question, the type of user (internal or external), and the type of interaction (telephone or walk-in). The standardized categories included in the menus described specific interactions such as reference, product instruction, renewal assistance, and report retrieval. The standardized categories were helpful when reporting out from the database.
A critical function of the database was how it would handle the tracking and transmittal of electronic reference requests. These requests had been handled through a shared library email account, but this failed to provide tracking of completed requests and system reporting. It was also not tied to the customer patron activity record in our automation system. The new database would remedy all of these deficiencies and provide much more consistent handling of electronic reference requests. Some standardized “canned” responses were added to the database, which could be selected and modified to provide responses for the most repeated inquiries.
An additional requirement of the new database was that it tie interactions both to the individual customer, and in the case of reference interactions, to the individual librarian. This provided both accountability by the librarian and the ability to capture the types of reference queries received from customers. The database also allowed the librarians to distinguish between external and internal customers, so that we could capture the volume of external activity being handled by the Library’s reference services.
Menus within the existing library automation system were changed to incorporate the new database under the heading “Reference” which was added to the existing system menus: circulation, cataloging, serials, and acquisitions. Three new forms were added to capture reference desk interactions, electronic reference, and extended reference. A fourth link allowed the librarian to query the system by customer, and generate a record of that activity. More detailed reports could be generated by the system administrator.
The database was designed to capture any usage of library systems and services. When inactive users moved to an active status, the registry could immediately generate an email welcoming them to the library and inviting them to share topics of interest, so that they might then receive more customized information delivery. This allowed the librarians to know which part of the library’s customer base was comprised of active customers and to note changes within the customer base.
The librarian who supported the customer’s area of research could then be notified so that an initial personal visit could be arranged. The librarian could also initiate new customer contacts by searching the registry by research division for inactive users so that they might be made aware of the services the library had to offer.
The registry was designed to capture specific information on customers’ usage of all library services so that it would be easy to see where potential gaps existed and to offer the customer more tailored information that might be useful. The registry also provided a statistical picture of what systems were getting used and who were the primary users.
A
customer information component of the library’s automation system was modified
to expand the
basic information that is kept for each customer. The individual customer information was modified automatically by
the system as the customer accessed and used library systems. Some information had to be input by the
librarian manually when a customer contacted the library reference desk by
phone or in person. It was hoped that
this database input would be less onerous for the librarians than previous
attempts, since they were already working within the library automation
system. Forms were designed requiring
minimal data entry to encourage library staff use.
Library management could use the same system to see what research divisions were using the library’s services and systems, and to then make adjustments to those services and collections in a timely way. Managers would have a tool for being more responsive to the customer base and targeting new customers. They could also more easily justify the costs of services based on usage.
One difficulty, recognized throughout this project, was our heavy reliance on customized programming. Tying the database into the existing library automation system rather than creating a standalone database added to the complexity of our task. Customized programming is expensive, and the support that an automation systems vendor can provide was not available.
Another difficulty, which is always tied to gathering reference statistics, is that the process can never be totally automated. There is always a certain amount of input necessary from the librarians who manage a reference interaction. Any time there is manual input, there is the potential for data being omitted, and some changes in procedures and workflow are required. A major cultural change for the librarians was the need to query all reference desk customers for names or badge numbers. While this is a standard procedure in many businesses, it was not a welcome addition to the librarian’s workflow at the reference desk. This piece was critical, however, if we were going to complete the picture of which customers used our reference services.
The most difficult piece of creating the Customer Registry was incorporating data on customer usage of third-party vendor systems. The third-party systems had to be linked on a case-by-case basis. Most library databases did not require an individual logon because they were site-licensed and therefore authenticated by IP domain. This presented difficulties in tying individual usage to a specific database. While general usage statistics for databases were being gathered, we had not identified the specific customer base for each product. In order to link individual use to specific database products, IP domain addresses for each machine using a database were captured and converted to an individual customer name within the library automation system. This information promised to enrich the data on overall library usage and give a specific picture of database usage, comparable to circulation statistics.
Two years after implementation of the Customer Registry
Database, we have concluded that although the effort involved in creating a
database to gather customer data was a worthwhile endeavor, it required an
enormous amount of customized programming which raised concerns about
associated costs. Also, toward the
later stages of the project, library management began discussions about moving
to a new library system. In spite of
the complexities involved, our experience with the design and implementation of
the Customer Registry Database gave us valuable insights regarding the kind of
capabilities we would like to incorporate within any new library automation
system we acquire.
Customer service plays a critical role in the delivery of library services. In the current environment, of downsizing and outsourcing, librarians must be able to satisfy their customers’ needs if they are to convince management that they deserve continued funding. The ability to gather the data needed to accomplish this task is essential and ongoing.
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