Mark Aaron Polger is an academic librarian and information literacy instructor who has been working in libraries since 1992. He received his MLIS degree in 2000 from the University of Western Ontario (London, Ontario, Canada) and has worked as a librarian in public, hospital, and academic libraries.
Currently, he is the Coordinator of Library Outreach at the College of Staten Island, City University of New York (CUNY). His responsibilities include coordinating the library’s marketing and outreach activities, engage in campus community partnerships, and assists in the assessment of library services and resources. He has been deeply engaged in working in various library signage activities since 2012. He has written about library signage audits in journals and other publications and has presented nationally at library conferences. He identifies as an accidental library marketer, as most of his professional experience as a librarian involves the marketing of library services and resources.
He is the author of three books. In 2021, he wrote Library Signage and Wayfinding Design: Communicating Effectively with Your Users, which will be published in Fall 2021 by ALA editions. In 2019, he wrote Library Marketing Basics, published by Rowman and Littlefield Publishers. He is also the co-author of Engaging Diverse Learners: Teaching Strategies for Academic Librarians, published by Libraries Unlimited, an imprint of ABC-CLIO.
His research interests include library marketing, outreach, and UX (user experience) design. Mark is most interested in how users interact with the library’s physical and virtual touch points; specifically the web site, terminology, signage, and promotional materials. He has written and presented on topics ranging from library marketing strategies, faculty outreach, Information Literacy marketing campaigns, library jargon, and library signage. Currently, he is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of the open-access, peer reviewed journal Marketing Libraries Journal, which was launched in Fall 2017.
Originally from Montreal, Canada, Polger holds a DEC in Pure and Applied Sciences from Marianopolis College, a BA in Sociology from Concordia University, an MLIS from the University of Western Ontario, an MA in Sociology from University of Waterloo, and a B.Ed. in Adult Education from Brock University. He is currently a PhD candidate in the Graduate School of Education at the University at Buffalo, SUNY, where he is working on his dissertation.