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This book provides an overview of best practice strategic marketing with advice on how to implement effective marketing activities in libraries and information services with the best chance of success.

Many government and other reports stress the need to get public libraries back into the lives of potential users, and this requires significant marketing effort on the part of the libraries. However, it quickly becomes apparent to public librarians that marketing is far more than simply creating a set of leaflets, as part of a series of disconnected programmes throughout the authority. What they need is a simple, practical guide to an integrated marketing planning process, from initial goals to implementation of marketing strategies. And along the way they need to troubleshoot the barriers that such activities meet. This highly practical and down-to-earth book, with free, downloadable templates and forms on the web, will de-mystify the marketing planning process and set it in the context of modern public library services. Through a series of easy-to-implement process steps, the reader will see not just what is possible but what is likely to work quickly, and deliver real impact on performance indicators, in a public library context. The book is structured as follows: ambition as the basis for marketing planning; making sense of the market for public library services; creating segment-specific value propositions for users and non-users; priorities: making sound choices; clear objectives and winning strategies; attention-grabbing marketing communications; and; implementation and quick progress. The text is fully international in scope and is written for those practitioners at all levels of library management who recognize the importance of marketing planning in shaping and positively influencing the direction of public library services.

Many government and other reports stress the need to get public libraries back into the lives of potential users, and this requires significant marketing effort on the part of the libraries. This book de-mystifies the marketing planning process and sets it in the context of modern public library services.

This article outlines a practical set of four challenges to senior management who wish to quickly self assess the \"fitness\" of their organization to manage risk. These four challenges arise from the business and project risk environment in the context of organizational and personal attitudes to risk: Do we understand the shareholder value risks of our strategy choices? Do we understand the risks that our structure and processes pose for implementation of chosen strategies? Is the risk appetite of the organization consistent with the risk appetite of our staff? Are we confident that our staff are effective and efficient in reacting to, and dealing with, risk? The four challenges offered in this paper will enable senior managers to broadly self-assess an organization's ability to manage risk as both a value-creating opportunity as well as a value-protecting activity.

Purpose - Firms collaborate for many reasons; however, sharing resources would seem a primary motive. This paper seeks to argue that in many instances firms collaborate to become part of a knowledge network - to learn about their industry and collectively use their knowledge to serve their own customers more effectively in a competitive environment.Design methodology approach - This is a conceptual paper; however, the authors illustrate the work with examples from the automotive industry.Findings - The authors conclude that it is necessary to expand traditional approaches to understanding networks to include the nature and purpose of the interactions between the firms, as well as the structural features of the network and the development of shared meaning and consensus among the network participants.Research limitations implications - The authors demonstrate the need to take a broader view of learning and collaboration in networks.Practical implications - The automotive and other industries are beginning to witness firms collaborating with competitors and other firms that can add value through collective learning. What seems certain is that for many industries the basis of future competition will be collaborative learning communities versus collaborative learning communities rather than OEM versus OEM in competing for resources and market share.Originality value - The paper examines how and why firms interact and how this influences what learning is shared, and how such learning is utilised by the firms involved. The paper explores the concept of collective learning, and discusses how the nature and purpose of the interactions between network partners facilitate key learning capabilities.