PR: The State of Public Relations in Academic Libraries

Abstract

eecher' s statement is particularly true in the United States, yet our libraries today are beset ~!!i.§~ by the same budget shortages that threaten many other vital public service agencies. Faced with financial woes, librarians have joined representatives from other types of institutions across the nation in telling their stories through public relations (PR) as a means for increasing public awareness of and support for their services. A review of the literature on library . PR suggests that public libraries adopted this response to financial problems long before academic libraries.2 However, no surveys have been conducted to gather statistics that would support or refute this assumption. In 1979library PR consultant Alice Norton found only three college libraries with full-time PR positions. This situation may have reflected legislative restrictions against funding PR positions or campus structures assigning responsibility for academic library PR to existing public information offices. In 1981 Sally Brickman cited three reasons for academic libraries to reach out for public attention: (1) to inform users about collections and services; (2) to demystify academic libraries and make them more user-friendly; and (3) to generate funding to meet the skyrocketing price of books and journals during a period of budget cutbacks. Libraries are often considered the heart of the university. Even so, many campus communities are unaware of their library's resources and fail to challenge its potential. 7 Citing the combined need to provide better user information, to build a positive image, and to project that image to users and potential support groups, Carroll urges academic libraries to join the communications era of the 1980s. To fill the information gap surrounding library PR programs, a survey was conducted to characterize and determine the scope of the current state of academic library PR. Forty-eight library directors at universities with student enrollments of nine to twelve thousand were surveyed. A