Information marketing of free-based services in academic libraries in Sri Lanka

Abstract

The concept of marketing not only involves the buying and selling for financial gain, but also the achievement of organizational objectives successfully. Thus the term _marketing' has a wider and deeper sense, which proliferates the organization's successive achievements. Modern marketing is applied not only to profit making organization, but also to non-profit sector and social service organizations like library. Marketing in the library sector involves the performance of planning, organizing, dissemination and controlling of information services on a proactive and user oriented way that ensures user satisfaction while achieving the objectives of the parent organization. The information service system in Sri Lanka incorporates mainly the various library system like a national library, academics libraries, special libraries, government libraries, public libraries, school libraries, corporate/business libraries, ecclesiastical libraries and other information centres. Parent organizations of the libraries spend a large amount of money for their library activities. However, due to various reasons, most of these libraries seem to be underutilized and have failed to satisfy the information needs of their users. One of the reasons is lack of marketing. This study attempts to understand the present attitude of marketing in academic libraries in Sri Lanka. Here the basic marketing performance of academic libraries is examined using two questionnaires. Focus was on the investigation of the understanding of markets/potential markets, planning target services to accurate market segments, identification of competitive advantages, the application of marketing mixes (4Ps) etc. to libraries. It is also aimed at identifying the problems encountered in marketing of library and information services. Five academic libraries and 250 users responded with data.