Dr.P.Chellappandi
Assistant Professor,
Department of Library & Information Sciences
Madurai Kamaraj University
Madurai – 625 021. Tamilnadu. India
E-mail: pandi_chella@rediffmail.com
Dr.J.P.S.Kumaravel
Associate Professor and Academic Coordinator
Department of Library & Information Science
DDE,
Madurai Kamaraj University
Madurai – 625 021. Tamilnadu. India Libraries, including university libraries, are public

institutions that serve the society. -- Dr.S.R.
Ranganathan ‘‘A library is an investment in humanity in its
progress and its struggles and its traditions’’ -Paterson
 Now all Libraries despite their type are in atransition from Document oriented to Digital
information providers

 Libraries as a physical space containing printed documents (physicalbuilding) to libraries as a social space.
 Owners of information to providers of access to information
 Change in the philosophy and roles of library.
 Reference services to information delivery centres.
 A center for merely creating informed citizens to producing
communicative citizens.
 Library as service-oriented to user-oriented centres.
 A shift from library cooperation to library consortium.
 information literacy to information overflow.
 shift from ‘‘here and now’’ to a more virtual information services
providers that will cross the boundaries of time and distance.

Marketing – What?
 “first we need ‘marketing’ which looks upon the entire business from thepoint of view of its ultimate purpose and justification that is from thepoint of view of the customer (or rather the ‘customers’ since every
business and every product has at least two, and usually many morequite different types of customer to satisfy. – Peter J Drucker
Modes of Marketing in Library and Information Services
 displaying new arrivals;
 sending newly acquired book titles accession lists and e-informationresources (e-journals) via email and print formats to staff;
 posting information on notice boards in around campus;, producing brochures to promote e-information resources (mainly ejournals) and development of Library Website which can be accessed locally.

 The prominent marketer, Jerome McCarthy, E proposed a Four'P's classification in 1960, which has since been widely used bymarketers throughout the world. The 'four Ps' are Product Price Promotion
 Place
Almost all the proposed marketing mix are based on
promoting business based on some tangible products. But
Libraries are concerned with information which are intangible.
Hence I feel that a new marketing mix which is specifically formarketing of Information is the need of the day.

 Product Processes/Procedures Personalization
 Professional Skills and Competencies
 Ambience Clientele Humanthought and experience that are tacitknowledge are recorded and converted into explicit
knowledge and available as products in Library andinformation Centers.
They should bemadeavailable to all either free of cost or at nominal cost.

 Traditionallibraries had adopted to classification,
cataloguing and reference service to enable theknowledge embedded in documents to reach theknowledge seekers. In modern libraries, OPAC, digital
repositories have become the tools for knowledge
storage and dissemination Personalization

technology enables the dynamic insertion,customization or suggestion of content in any format that is relevantto the individual user, based on the user’s implicit behaviour andpreferences, and explicitly given details.
 The users behaviours may vary in their information seeking as wellas their psychological behaviour.
 For example a scholar may require information on a specific topic
and then, on receipt of it he/she may use it for making power point
presentations.
 Here the librarians job is to design a personalised information
retrieval system which can satisfy the needs of the users.

The librarian is supposed to have certain marketing skills
such as a belief in service and trying to achieve customer'ssatisfaction;
 a clear understanding of the organization's overall aims
and objectives;
 an ability to assemble and interpret information for thebenefit of the clientele; good communication skills, bothoral and written;
 enthusiasm and commitment; and ability to take criticism, not always constructive.

Ranganathan provocates that like a host, the libraianshould provide full hospitality to a user - as a supreme
guest at the premises of the library. According toRanganathan (1961):
 Give service with full attention and sincerity.
 Give him/her service to the best capacity at yourcommand.
 Give him/her service in all modesty and in full freedom
from any touch of prestige or ego.
 Give him/her service in full measure there should not be
any offence to the laws of library science.

 The implementation of ICT alone cannot encourage theclientele to visit the library frequently. A library having
good ambience will naturally attract more readers to theLibrary. In order to achieve this, many libraries arechanging themselves from traditional look to thedevelopment of Learning commons.

 Library and information professionals should strive hardto gain a far vision of 'who our customers are', 'what theywant', and 'what are their social characters, values,desires, aspiration'. The advancement of information andcommunication technologies (ICTs) has enablededucation and technology in self-help and do-it-yourself
activities in libraries. The 21st century clientele will placehigh value on self-reliance, adaptability and survival
under difficult conditions and the ability to do things ofhis/her own.

Though the components of proposed marketing mix
P4AC are equally important, they can be organizedin the order of preference in the following manner
Professional Skills & competencies
30%
Clientele
20%
Ambience
20%
Product
10%Personalisation10%
Processes and Procedures
10%

Academic libraries rely on their host organizations for
operational costs. To gain some self-sufficiency,
university libraries think seriously about not only
recovering the costs incurred but also making a profit
through their services. Whenever librarians meet andchat among themselves, the main theme is the changing
trend in the user approach and the environment in which
the libraries work.
What ever may be the case, thelibrarians should give prime importance to the major
share of marketing mix – Professional skills andcompetencies, to prove their identity.