A marketing plan for Namuwongo Community Library

Abstract

The study aimed at developing a Marketing Plan for Namuwongo Community Library (NCL) Services. The objectives of the study were to: identify information needs of Namuwongo Community Library users, establish the services offered by NCL, identify the types of information materials offered at NCL, examine the strategies of marketing library services at NCL, identify the challenges in marketing of library services at NCL and develop a marketing plan for Namuwongo Community Library services. The study employed a case study research design qualitative research approach to obtain data from the respondents. The questionnaires, interview guides, and the observation guides were used in data collection necessary in developing a marketing plan for Namuwongo Community Library services. Purposive sampling technique was used to select 46 students, 14 non students and 2 librarians from Namuwongo Community Library who participated in the study. The findings from the study established that; library users for Namuwongo Community Library have different needs which include; reference/consultation services, reading services, research services, internet services, reading space and many others. The library offers a wide range of library services which include; current awareness services, orientation of the library users, reference services, user education, book loan services, reading space, scanning services and many others. The library also manages a number of information materials that are used by users which include; text books and reference books, holy books, periodicals like magazines and newspapers, reports, charts and many others. The library staff faces a number of problems while marketing the library services to the users of the library and these were; Inadequate funds, lack of computers, inadequate information materials, small reading space. The study concluded that there was need to develop a marketing plan for Namuwongo Community Library Services. The major recommendation was NCL should implement the proposed marketing plan for NCL services. The other recommendations were; use of an appropriate marketing approach, involvement of users in marketing of library services, promotion of current awareness services, offering of assistance services, improving the quality library services, training and educating the library users, organizing events, and setting up a social media network.