Marketing of academic health libraries 2.0: a case study
| Published date | 11 March 2019 |
| Pages | 155-177 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/LM-03-2018-0013 |
| Date | 11 March 2019 |
| Author | Manika Lamba |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Librarianship/library management,HR in libraries,Library strategy,Library promotion |
Marketing of academic health
libraries 2.0: a case study
Manika Lamba
Department of Library and Information Science, University of Delhi, Delhi, India
Abstract
Purpose –The advent of Web 2.0 in libraries persuades the librarians to adopt new ways to communicate,
determine, and satisfy the needs of the users. The paper aims to discuss this issue.
Design/methodology/approach –A 30-question questionnaire was given to 30 undergraduate medical
students of Vardhman Mahavir Medical College and a 10-question questionnaire was given to the librarian, to
find out: the marketing and promotional strategies employed by the library; determine the awareness and
satisfaction level of the users; prepare library profile, customer profile and market profile; and perform SWOT
analysis. User responses were coded and processed using GNU PSPP software.
Findings –From the library profile of Vardhman Mahavir Medical College library, it can be concluded that
the library has the potential to offer better services and products to its users. From the customer profile of
Vardhman Mahavir Medical College library, it is concluded that the most of its users are young male
undergraduate students who use the library more on weekly basis. From the market profile of Vardhman
Mahavir Medical College library, it is concluded that the library has not invested in the marketing and has no
promotion strategy or marketing strategy for its products and services. Also, the library has only one digital
promotional activity. From the SWOT analysis of Vardhman Mahavir Medical College library, it is concluded
that the library does not use any of the social platforms to market its products and services. Most of the users
are unaware of the services and products offered by the library. There are many opportunities for the library
to work upon and improve the quality of products and services being offered to its users.
Research limitations/implications –The major limitation of the present study is its small sample size.
It is very difficult to conduct surveys in health libraries because of the busy schedule of the undergraduate
medical students and their reluctance to fill out lengthy questionnaires. However, this small sample size only
made it possible to conduct the SWOT analysis on the basis of the users’survey successfully. Further, the
small sample size helped to take into account all the opportunities stated by the users which would not have
been possible if a larger sample size was taken.
Originality/value –This study is one of a kind which provides an overview of marketing research of an
academic health library of New Delhi (India) with a special focus on library profile, market profile, customer
profile and SWOT analysis. It addresses the gaps in the literature by studying marketing in the context of
academic health libraries in the digital environment.
Keywords Web 2.0, SWOT analysis, Digital marketing, Health academic libraries, Products and services,
Vardhman Mahavir Medical College
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Marketing is one of the strategic tools of management in addition to planning, organizing,
staffing, coordinating and controlling. Marketing a library service has the objective of
engaging people in a relationship, which will encourage them to use the service and to
continue doing so in the long term. It entails knowing or anticipating what users want,
communicating to them what is available and being able to provide it to a level that is
satisfactory to them. The main purpose of marketing is to attract and retain a growing base
of satisfied customers. Today’s libraries have become increasingly multi-disciplinary,
collaborative and networked. With the advent of the internet, the health professionals are
able to generate, communicate and exchange information at a faster pace. In the face of this
competition, library managers need to market their services to actual and potential users.
Marketing not only helps to compare services and products of different health libraries but
also create competitions among them to provide services and products of better quality.
By doing marketing research of their health libraries, librarians can also anticipate what the
user will need in the near future.
Library Management
Vol. 40 No. 3/4, 2019
pp. 155-177
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0143-5124
DOI 10.1108/LM-03-2018-0013
Received 1 March 2018
Revised 16 August 2018
Accepted 19 August 2018
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0143-5124.htm
155
Marketing of
academic
health
libraries 2.0
This study conducts marketing research at Vardhman Mahavir Medical College,
New Delhi (India) and outlines the importance of marketing in academic health libraries. In
the present study, survey method was used to collect data from the undergraduate medical
students and the librarian of the college. GNU PSPP software (PSPP –GNU Project –Free
Software Foundation, 2018) was used to code and analyze the data. The paper has both
methodological and applicative objectives: to identify the marketing and promotional
strategies employed by Vardhman Mahavir Medical College library in the digital
environment; to determine the awareness and satisfaction level of the users; to prepare
library profile, customer profile and market profile; and to perform SWOT analysis on the
data collected from the users. This study addresses the gaps in the literature by studying
marketing in the context of academic health libraries in the digital environment. This work
has broad application to those interested of marketing in health libraries. From a
methodological standpoint, this work may hold interest for librarians for evaluating
libraries on the basis of their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
1.1 Marketing vis-a-vis health libraries
Tilson (1994) defined marketing as a means of planning and managing the relationship
between the organization and its customers. He further explained that it involves studying
target market needs, planning for the suitable goods and services, pricing, effective
distribution and relation for information and creating motivation for the market whereas
Rowley (2003) described marketing as a management process by which customer or user
requirements are identified, anticipated and supplied efficiently and profitably. The process
of marketing includes market research, identifying the consumer needs and demands, their
pricing and promoting them to the appropriate consumers. Elliott de Sáez (2013) described
that marketing in the digital environment is no different than marketing in the traditional
way and it includes all the steps similarly like exploring and identifying the trends,
understanding market needs, presenting appropriate marketing mixes and evaluating
throughout. Hernando (1997) emphasized that in a world of evidence-based practice,
clinicians need to know what is available to them and if libraries are to survive as
information providers, they must be seen to be relevant to the healthcare setting.
1.2 Application of Web 2.0 tools in health libraries
O’Reilly (2018) first defined Web 2.0 as “the second wave of Internet technologies:
interconnected and converging on a unified platform, with services continually updated in a
‘perpetual beta’and remixed even by final users, open to social use and reuse of information
in an ‘architecture of participation’and promising ‘rich user experiences’well beyond the
reach of the limited 1.0 web pages,”whereas Maness (2006/2018) defined Library 2.0 as
“the application of interactive, collaborative, and multi-media web-based technologies to
web-based library services and collections.”
Social platforms such as Facebook, Wikipedia, Twitter and blogs are often built on
Web 2.0 architecture. The use of social media by researchers of all academic areas raised
considerable interest recently with the advent of internet and technology. Researchers use
social media for acquiring, creating and sharing knowledge. “In the medical and academic
research domains, the possible impact of Web 2.0 services received early acknowledgment
in terms of increasing user participation, implications of user-generated content for
academic practices and intellectual property issues”(Anderson, 2007). According to
Giustini (2006), social media has the potential to “change medicine,”improving information
access and sharing while enhancing clinical practice; whereas Metzger and Flanagin (2011)
stressed “the utility of Web 2.0 technologies for engaging stakeholders with evidence-based
medical information.”
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