Marketing Critique

The Cerritos Library is nestled in the small community of just over 50,000 in Cerritos, tied to the greater Los Angeles area, on the South Eastern edge of Los Angeles County. It is attached to City Hall and the police station as far as access to the library goes. As you walk up to the library it is situated next to a fountain containing Coy Fish, and another fountain that is set to a timer with dolphin statues neatly nestled around it. This library stands as one of the more beautiful libraries in the area, costing just under 40 million dollars for the cost of the building, it stands as a work of art in the community. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerritos_Millennium_Library ) Their children's section has a story time room, an arts and crafts room as well as the general book room which has to scale mock space shuttle as well as dinosaur. Besides these wonders they have a giant aquarium that they have a diver go into once a week to clean out the tank. The library itself is divided into different themed sections ranging from modern art to rustic with lots of cherry wood furniture and a fireplace with chairs surrounding it. Alongside its general library duties the community has considered it a kind of resource center, with a large community room that they have on the third floor, and a few different high tech computer labs available for teaching classes out of. Both of those are income generators for the library, as well as the hefty fee for any non-resident to the community who wishes to use their services. Given the obvious planning and foresight that was considered when developing the building and the surrounding area for the Cerritos library, it is a wonder that so little consideration has gone into the marketing and placing of its items on the web.

I started my research into the building itself and visiting the library, seeing its marvelous structure and all of the programs they have for the community. I was then shocked when I began to research what was available about the Cerritos Library on the web. To begin my search I went to the webpage for the library. http://menu.ci.cerritos.ca.us/ ) (It was found easily enough by doing a Google Search of the library.) It immediately popped up. The general display of the website was pretty looking. It was filled with pictures of the building that would excite one about the general library. The links to the library were in a long column on the left hand side of the page. They tried to divide the links by the type of search what you were doing. The top part of the links had to do with library usage, checking out accounts and various things about the library itself as far as what was in the collection. They then would move down into programming in the library and what stuff they had going on including a calendar of events. When I got to the links about some of the pictures, however, I was disappointed to learn that some of the links had problems with them. I was unable to access some of the quicktime movies that would capture the look of the library. The comment section of the webpage was a minor disappointment in the fact that it had a place to comment but you could not read anyone else's comments about the library.

Following my exploration of the website I decided to research the presence of the library on MySpace and Facebook. While not all of the social networking sites, they are two of the most prominent on the net and I decided to look them up. I have profiles on both MySpace and Facebook and looked up the Cerritos Library on both of those sites, deciding to search for what they had on MySpace first. I began my search actually searching through Google and found one account that mentioned Cerritos but was unable to find anything that specifically had the Cerritos Library on it. I decided to then go onto MySpace through my own account and look up the Cerritos Library but was even more shocked when I got on there. There was a Cerritos Library MySpace page, but it was definitely not operated by anyone at the library as it had very little items listed on it and the one quote for the library mentioned them having a nice porn collection aside from their regular collection, which I suppose could be true but I doubt would be widely published on a social networking site. I would have thought maybe it was some other library except that they had a picture of the Cerritos Library on the front of the MySpace page. (http://www.myspace.com/2801355)

Despite my disappointment with what was on MySpace I hoped I would see something different when I opened up Facebook to look to see what was on this social networking site. I was pleased to find it looked like they had an operating Facebook account. And even if not run by a Cerritos Staff member it was at least run by someone who liked the library. They had a limited selection of pictures of the outside of the building. They also had a comments page but no one seemed to be commenting on it, either indicating the lack of interest of people in the library or a lack of desire of the Cerritos Staff to have people comment about their library. Given what they had on the website, I couldn't be sure of either. There was some commentary about a book in the library, but when I realized the person making the comment had the Cerritos Library building as their picture, I wondered more about whether it was a patron or staff run Facebook page. (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Cerritos-CA/Cerritos-Library/246296406904?ref=search)

Following the social networking sites, I decided to research the blogs to see if I could find one that was run by the Cerritos Library. I checked www.blogspot.com to see if they had anything I could find on the Cerritos library, which I then ran through Google to inquire about blogs on the library. There was one blog that took in the ratings of the Cerritos Library, but nothing more. It seemed they had little interest in developing marketing outside of their own personal website, which would limit Cerritos to serving its own community and allow no outreach. I decided to read what was posted about the Library nonetheless as this place seemed to be the only place so far I had found commentary about the library. Most commented about the beauty of the library itself, and a wish that they had something like this when they were growing up. One comment said that it was a "fishbowl" making them feel like they were being observed constantly, rather than a place to work and research. What I found most instructive is that most of the comments were about the nature of the library itself, its structure, beauty, etc. There was very little to be found on the usefulness of the collection.

Given what little I found on any of the other major sites I was not surprised to find that Cerritos did not have a Twitter presence. (www.twitter.com) This would be something that would require a lot more effort than a blog and far more effort than would a social networking site like Facebook or MySpace. I was unable to find anything about the library on there. They seemed to want to do very little to engage the web in any meaningful way it would seem.

Considering the millions of dollars poured into the building and the collection it would seem reasonable that they would want to have a positive word of mouth about the library and its resources. I was not going to give up. Despite their lack of presence on the web, I determined that the potential of the library could be met through a large change in policy. Beginning with a presence on MySpace and Facebook, the library should make an effort to engage their public through having a space dedicated to them. While it may be time consuming and they might not be able to update it as regularly as they should, it's better to have one's own presence on the web then allow someone to think that pornography would comprise a large part of the Cerritos collection. Secondarily I would open up their web page discussion board to allow patrons to discuss the library on the web in a productive manner. This may require someone to review what is being posted but I believe will benefit the library long term. Finally I would begin a blog, advertising the libraries coming events. Yes they do have something on the web page, but it is too hard to sift through as a patron, and patrons might not have the patience to do that. But devoting a blog to coming events of the library someone can easily peruse what coming events they might find of interest.

The question I had was whether Cerritos had the will to make those changes. I decided to do some further investigation into the library as a result. What I found lined up with their presence on the web. They charged exorbitantly to get a library card if you did live or work in their city. They changed their policies about getting a card. Cerritos used to have "sister cities," not belonging to the Los Angeles County system that they did not charge to get a card at their branch. They now charge. The Library considered belonging to the Santiago Library System which would put them in a relationship with libraries from the greater Southern California region. They decided it was not in their best interest. Finally, the library itself is not directed by someone who got a masters in Library Sciences, and the "Librarians," while having a masters degree, do not necessarily have one in Library Sciences. It would seem the library not only wishes to be solely dedicated to its little community, but they wish to remain outside the greater library community, with entirely different goals. It seems sad the promise of such a great building and large collection is under management who does not wish to provide this information to the world at large. Given the grandeur of the name, "Cerritos Millennium Library," the Wikipedia website displayed the promise of the library. Given the execution of that promise, it may as well be called the Cerritos book store and borrowing collective: "all outsider's keep off the grass."