Marketing library & information services Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Marketing library & information services - Essay Example In order to provide MLIS, understanding of the working of a library and its purpose and ideology is of great importance. Marketing has played a crucial role in the Australian academic libraries. Accelerating rates of change has become the marketing reality in current times (Kotler & Caslione, 2009). The scope of marketing in MLIS has seen increase in the recent years. This is partly due to technological advancement and partly due to changes in the educational requirements that the library aims to meet. In addition to that, new marketing methods have evolved that make it necessary for libraries to incorporate effective marketing into the delivery of resources to customers. The library needs to be speaking the language of the buyer in order to market well (Scott, 2007). Also marketing serves as a useful tool in promoting and advertising the resources of the library; this can have mutual benefits for both the library and its customers: to the library since it can attract more number of customers and to its customers in easily locating and accessing the services that they need. In Australian academic libraries, the role of marketing has received a lot of attention since educational advances and technological developments along with limited budgets have made students demand more in return for the membership fees that they are paying for libraries. One of the most significant contributions of marketing to LIS is that it helps in fostering a healthy marketing relationship with its customers. A good marketing strategy aims to identify potential customers and identifying their needs. It further requires the designing of products that meet these needs. Organizations are seeing the benefits of customer loyalty and are taking a customer-centric approach to strategy (Jain & Singh, 2010). If marketing is customer-focused, it helps to assert the importance of the customer over all other