ABSTRACT
Marketing electronic resources to reach the widest population of library users is not easy. While many libraries use a standard range of techniques' Web or e-mail announcements, newsletter articles, and flyers—to advertise their new acquisitions, libraries need to market early and effectively to maximize the efficient use of expensive electronic resources. Although marketing is important and challenging for libraries of all types, librarians receive little formal training in marketing. Books have been written to assist librarians in meeting this challenge, such as The Visible Librarian: Asserting Your Value with Marketing and Advocacy. 1 Marketing library purchases is often not viewed as an essential part of the workflow of library staff and faculty, but rather as an “addon” to the work of information professionals. 2 Electronic-resource purchasing budgets usually do not tend to include a corresponding budget item for promotion and evaluation of the resource's usage. When minimal time, money, staff, and resources are invested into promoting a newly acquired resource, it is not surprising that the impact of the marketing is unclear.
