Consequently, it behooves us to think more aggressively about marketing our information and knowledge products and services if we expect to be around in the future. In Library Land, one of these individuals is almost always a librarian. The other individuals include tax payers, students, faculty, or in the case of special libraries, fellow employees. Ultimately, these payments manifest themselves as tax dollars or other administrative support. As the perception of worth decreases so do tax dollars and support.
Marketing also includes product creation, pricing, and distribution.
Because of this increased competition, expectations surrounding information services have increased. Couple this with our society's undieing thirst for technology, demands for convienence, and the self-service mentality, libraries have to do more to improve their services and convience people why should use libraries and not necessarily other information providers. The key to this process is customer satisfaction, and one of the keys to customer satisfaction is employee satisfaction. Studies have shown that services organizations having high levels of employee satisfaction also have high levels of customer satisfaction, and low employee turnover is closely linked to customer satisfaction. Similarly, employees who feel accountable are more likely to provide better customer service.