A marketing plan for Mityana Community Library
Abstract
The study aimed at developing a Marketing Plan for Mityana Community Library (MCL) Services. The objectives of the study were to: identify the services provided, find out how marketing of information services is carried out, investigate challenges faced in marketing of information services, identify requirements for marketing of information services and design a Marketing Plan for Mityana Community Library.
The study employed a case study research design and a qualitative research approach. Questionnaires, interview and observation were used in data. Convenience and Purposive sampling techniques were used to select 25 library users and 2 librarians who participated in the study respectively.
The study established the services at MCL which included reference services, reading space services, book loan services, Internet services, user education, photocopying and printing services. 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 faced a number of challenges 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 Mityana Community Library Services. The major recommendation was MCL should implement the proposed Marketing Plan for MCL 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 of library services, training and educating the library users, organizing events, and setting up a social media network.