One of the best things about teaching and giving seminars is that it makes you think about subjects you might not otherwise have thought about. I was approached by Edmaker about giving a keynote address for Library Journal‘s New Ideas in Collection Development & Merchandising workshop. They suggested calling it “How to Merchandise Like a Bookstore.”
I’d never thought about merchandising from the point of view of an organization that’s not really selling anything, and it really led me into a new way of thinking about the work librarians do. The traditional definition of merchandising involves convincing people to buy something. Change that word “buy” to “borrow,” and it’s precisely the job of the librarians that are working to develop and expand their collections. Bookstores don’t carry a book unless people buy it; libraries don’t carry a book unless people borrow it.
Last week, I presented the keynote to a group of librarians. There were some great questions and discussion topics, and it really underscored how much a library has the same goals and objectives as an independent bookstore and how easy it is for us to work together.
The slides from the presentation are available here for download (it’s a 5.1MB PDF file).
Gary D. Robson 