Marketing strategies for the optimisation of library services in selected Nigerian universities

Abstract

Marketing of library services provides more opportunities for a better relationship and engagement between the libraries and user community. Studies had established that the implementation of marketing strategies is to ensure and enhance the awareness and utilisation of library resources and services by the users. However, a few of the empirical findings on awareness and usage of library resources and services in academic libraries in Nigeria reported that library resources and services are underutilised. This underutilisation might be due to a lack of awareness among users about the availability of library resources and services. This study, therefore, investigates and explores the marketing strategies implemented by librarians to optimise the library services in six federal university libraries in Nigeria. The study employs 7Ps of service marketing mix model as a theoretical framework to examine the marketing strategies and their impact on awareness and use of library services. A stratified disproportionate sampling method was used to sample the six universities across the six geopolitical zones in Nigeria. A purposive sampling technique was used to select six librarians for the interviews. The Krejcie and Morgan’s Table was used to sample the target undergraduate students from the selected universities. The researcher adopted mixed research methods using interview and questionnaire instruments to collect data from six librarians and 410 undergraduate students. The qualitative and quantitative data were collected through a telephone call and online survey sequentially. The qualitative data were analysed using content analysis and quantitative data were analysed via descriptive statistics. The Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was used for testing the hypotheses of the study. The hypotheses were developed to test the impact of the six constructs of the service marketing model as the theoretical framework of the study on the awareness and use of library services among the undergraduate students. The qualitative findings revealed that university libraries implement the product, promotion, place, people, process and physical evidence of service marketing mix as the strategies to optimise library services. The price strategy was not implemented. The findings of the hypotheses revealed statistically positive and significant impact of product, promotion, place, people, process and physical evidence on the awareness of library services among the students. While the product, promotion, place and physical evidence revealed a positive and significant impact on the use of library services; but the people and process strategies were found not to have a significant impact on the use of library services. The findings showed the relevance and applicability of the six components of service marketing mix in enhancing library services. The theoretical and practical contributions of the study are also presented and discussed with recommendations.