After 35 years in the marketing sector, Chicago-native James Keller, 57, wanted to give back for all the successes in his career. So in June 2005 Keller took the position of director of Marketing and Communications at the Queens Library, where he would be in charge of putting a face to the city’s largest public library system, one that would not exclude anyone in the country’s most ethnically diverse county.
Wanting to change perceptions of librarians and accurately portray the library’s diversity, Keller picked library employees to be the fresh faces in a campaign that proclaimed “I am your Queens Library.”
The Queens Library offered Keller a “really intriguing branding opportunity.” He drew up a new, sleek logo, as well as a new slogan, “Enrich your life,” geared towards the 14 million yearly visitors.
Renovation of the Langston Hughes Library in Corona was the first of 63 branches that will get a face-lift within the next three years under his watch. Mobile library vans will allow patrons to check out books during the renovations.
And a large number of new programs aimed at young adults and immigrants - including the only Weed and Seed program in the country connected to a library - were added to the library’s activities.
“Personally having lived overseas, I know how difficult it is coming to a new place and new country and making a life,” said Keller, who spent one year in Hong Kong and four years in Beijing. “What better thing than the library to help [new Americans] integrate into their new home.”
The library, which retains its own demographics staff, needed to transform itself into that home and better gear services at each branch to patrons.
“A library today is about a lot more than books,” Keller said, describing his aim to popularize the library with the borough’s Hispanic and Latino population.
Unlike many Asians, immigrants from South and Central America were not familiar with the library. “Unlike other cultural groups, there isn’t a strong library community,” he said.
So Keller recently sent out Spanish-language library card applications contained within a free newspaper in neighborhoods where many of Hispanics reside, and English applications to the rest of Queens. In total, 716,000 applications were dropped on doorsteps throughout the borough.
The library also needed to simplify access, so patrons can now fill out their applications and receive their card during the same visit. These easy ways of better marketing the library’s services will bring even more people into the system that boasts 20 million books in circulation, Keller believes.
“As a marketing guy, I used to do Bounty paper towels; you always want to have a product that is really good. It’s so rewarding to work at Queens Library because there is no other library like ours,” Keller enthused. And applying his vast experience to a non-profit has been particularly fulfilling, he said.
Keller’s marketing experience runs the gamut from Coca-Cola to General Electric to Procter & Gamble to Campbell Soup. He helped launch the “We Bring Good Things to Light” campaign for GE, and introduced caffeine-free beverages to PepsiCo.
For the Leukemia Society of America, Keller created a marketing plan that reversed a multi-year decline. In 1982, he founded J.A. Keller & Associates, Inc., a branding and marketing consulting company.
The true test of success will come this spring, when Queens Library will conduct market research as to how effective their campaign has been, but Keller’s strategies have already turned heads across the country.
“The library industry in America is starting to understand that they need to do a better job of marketing themselves,” said Keller, who will speak to libraries across the state about Queens’ transformation in May.
“A lot of people were not aware of what the Queens Library had to offer,” he said. “We are basically a warm, friendly, inviting, informal, and safe place for young adults, children, families, and seniors to come to and to gather.”
