Marketing of Library Services for Customer Satisfaction: A Case Study of the Polytechnic Ibadan

Abstract

The relationship between Librarians and patrons (library users) must be a symbiotic one if high education standards must be maintained and sustained especially in this age of information explosion. This means library collections, programs and services will remain marketable to educational communities regardless of their status. This paper highlighted roles and medium through which librarians can market various resources with a practical example of marketing strategies and techniques for newly admitted ND1 Students of The Polytechnic Ibadan Saki Campus, 2014/2015 academic session. Out of the 14 academic departments of the institution, 7 construction related departments were selected viz-a-viz Agricultural Engineering, Agricultural Technology, and Architectural Technology, Building Technology, Estate Management and Quantity surveying. In each of the selected 7 departments, Class representatives and their deputies were purposefully picked totaling 14. These were invited to watch documentary film at Saki Campus Library on the construction of World’s Tallest Hotel in Dubai, as part of orientation activities for fresh students. The multiplying effects of this program led to an improvement in usage, value, and increase in user education and perception which served as outcome for marketing library services. The paper then recommends among others, that this marketing strategy should be adopted and extended to other academic campuses to sustain academic culture nationwide. As librarians willing to justify their relevance in academic environment and library vote from their parent body, marketing techniques and strategies should be adopted in order to satisfy the library users’ needs.