The importance of promotional activities and training sessions for better service visibility
Each product or service needs to be promoted, popularized, and presented to the users well enough for them to start using it. Even when we discuss non-profit, non-commercial organisations, we need to think about “sale”. At IZUM, we develop services for users and these users can be library employees or users of library services, researchers, students as well as others. It is important that the modern services and solutions we develop are also being used. Even though we are publicly funded, we need to think and act in a market-oriented manner and offer these services on the market. Our main “profit” are satisfied users. If we invest in developing a service, we often run out of funds for promotion or not enough funds are invested into promotion. At IZUM, we undertake various activities to improve recognition and use of services. The most important of these activities is training, where we primarily train the librarians about the new features, who will later pass on that knowledge to the users of library services. We hold webinars for users with the aim to present products and services intended for easier and faster library operations. Usage statistics still show that our products COBISS+ and mCOBISS, as well as the My Library service are unfortunately underused. We believe that with common efforts and cooperation we can turn this trend around and also make other improvements. Libraries can play an important role and have a big potential in this aspect. Different promotions also play an important role. For this purpose, we are making promotional videos and tutorials. We are active on social media and we attend fairs, where we can present our services to a wider audience.