The linchpin: promoting online resources to front line library staff

When we promote e-resources by putting up posters, running information sessions, distributing bookmarks or engaging customers in competitions, we try and generate a message that tells the customer why they'll find a particular resource useful. There's every likelihood, though, that a large proportion of customers may not have a specific need for the resource being promoted at that particular time, but promotion using these methods still helps to get customers thinking about online resources. In using these traditional promotional methods, we are essentially aiming to get customers to file information about the library's online collection away somewhere for later use - for a time when they're actually looking for health information, or they need to find a newspaper article from a certain date.

I would argue, however, that frontline library staff - not posters or bookmarks or competitions - are the most important tools in successful promotion of e-resources. Frontline staff are, in fact, the linchpin in the whole game of promoting online resources. How so? Some of the most successful promotion of resources occurs at the point of need - when the customer is standing at the information desk with a question they need answered. Nothing beats telling a customer about a resource at the time they actually have a need for it. This is when the advantages of a particular online resource can be most meaningfully communicated, in the context of the customer's information need. When you can use an example that's relevant to them, the customer is more likely to take away a positive message about what they can get out of a particular product.

If frontline library staff do not have an awareness of the products in the online collection, at least a basic understanding of how to use them, and a fair degree of comfort with the idea of showing them to customers, then face-to-face, point of need promotion just won't happen.

In an ever changing information landscape, where the onslaught of information we encounter every day, from various channels, can be so overwhelming, and where there are an abundance of options for finding information, how do we make sure that all library staff, particularly frontline customer service staff, know about the full range of online resources to which your library subscribes? There is an indisputable need to have a well developed promotional strategy tailored specifically for promotion to library staff.

Some tried and tested strategies (and some new ideas) for increasing staff awareness of and confidence with online resources include:

• Run a monthly online resource challenge. Choose half a dozen interesting or quirky questions, related to specific e-resources, and email them out to frontline staff, inviting them to spend 15 or 20 minutes experimenting with e-resources during a quiet desk shift. If you're able, offer a small prize - you'll be amazed how competitive staff will become, even for a box of chocolates! Tip: Don't make the answers too difficult to find. The aim is to get staff to log in and look around, not to test their searching skills! This should be a fun activity that staff look forward to each month.

• Implement a regular training program. For example, you could produce a training package for a set of resources each quarter, with the aim of all staff attending the training during that three month period. You might like to run these as paper bag lunch time sessions. The time investment can be fairly low - you might spend a few hours preparing the presentation materials, but you could then deliver the same training as many times as needed to ensure all staff have an opportunity to attend. Establish momentum by making sure you run the training on a regular basis - for example, you might run one program for a quarter, and then run a different program covering different resources during the following quarter.

• Make training more interesting. Why not run a staff-only trivia competition, where participants can use any online resource to find the answer to a tricky trivia question? Give participants five minutes per question and send them searching! Award points for a screen capture of the answer in context of the resource used, and give bonus points for each additional database they were able to use to find the same answer.

• Give staff time to experiment with online resources. Make it clear that during down times on the information desk, it's perfectly legitimate to spend a few minutes trying out new databases.

• Set a standing agenda item for team meetings, where time is set aside to spend five minutes reviewing one product. Make sure this item is near the top of your agenda, so that it doesn't get dropped off if the meeting runs long.

• Involve staff in the selection and renewal process. Ask for feedback on new and existing products and use the amount of feedback you get as a litmus test for how well your promotional strategies are working. If you don't get a lot of feedback, chances are staff aren't using that particular resource.

Over to you: E-resource coordinators, how do you ensure that staff at your library are equipped with the knowledge they need to sell your online collection to library customers? Frontline staff, what strategies could your library employ to assist you with developing and maintaining your knowledge of and comfort with e-resources?

By Kate Davis, ERA Executive, Public Libraries Representative, Gold Coast City Council