New technology and marketing—the challenge for librarians

Abstract

Though I have had little contact with the medical library profession, I do know that your group (Medical, Health and Welfare Libraries) is highly active and highly thought of throughout the profession. From my point of view, however, the grouping of three really quite different professional sub‐groups under one banner presents a number of problems. If I'm to talk about marketing then I've got to take some note of the markets served by these three groups. Since the markets served by these groups are quite different from one another I can either attempt to say something which applies equally to all three, thereby missing some of the key differences, or I can attempt to touch individually on the problems and peculiarities of each sector in turn, but without going into sufficient detail to avoid generalities. As a group you are serving three very distinct user populations: medical professionals with highly frequent, demanding and specific information needs, a captive, if floating, patient population whose needs are less specific, more diffuse and less clearly defined and a broad base of administrators and planners. (See Fig. 1 below). This trichotomy is, of course, a gross oversimplification on a number of levels, but I mention it merely to show what I mean when I say that as a group you are aiming to serve a number of distinct markets. Keith Morton has referred to the National Health Service as an information market and I should like to quote what he had to say, since it confirms my first impressions as an outsider looking in.

Citation

Cronin, B. (1982), "New technology and marketing—the challenge for librarians", Aslib Proceedings, Vol. 34 No. 9, pp. 377-393. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb050853