JOURNAL OF INFORMATION, KNOWLEDGE AND RESEARCH IN HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES
INFORMATION MARKETING : NEED OF THE HOUR
RAVAL BHAVESH BHALCHANDRA
RESEARCH SCHOLAR SINGHANIA UNI. JHUNJHUNU
ABSTRACT :Change is a law of life and our future depends on how we manage the change. User satisfaction is a prime goal of libraries and informationcenters and proper understanding about the change can definitely lead to the achievement of the goal. The paper disscusses in detail one of the important levers of change that is marketing, in the context of libraries and information centers. Need for information marketing, aim and importance of information marketing and distinguishing characteristics of services that make their marketing more challenging than products are also highlighted in this paper. A feasibility study was carried out by the author on "Marketing of library and information services and products of Smt. Hansa Mehta Library" - the university library of the M.S.University of Baroda and major findings and suggestions of the study are presented in the paper.
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JOURNAL OF INFORMATION, KNOWLEDGE AND RESEARCH IN HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES
INTRODUCTION :
Charles Kettering has aptly remarked, "The world hates change, yet it is the only thing that has brought progress." In other words, change is the law of life. Hence, if any society wants to go ahead and desires to have better future, it must embrace change willingly and adjust its steps to the uncertainties invariably associated with it. The societies that have adapted successfully to many changes thrown up by the massive technological revolution and have, as a consequence, scored over other languishing societies, are the ones which have, on crucial occasions, also thrown up a combination of right values, right knowledge and right action. What is equally significant, all these qualities were made operational at the most opportune time in their evolution. In short, the societies that have made rapid dstrides over the past three hundred years are those. Which have adapted themselves to changes-both in ideas and in actions.
This is very true about changes sweeping the library and information centers in our country during the past quarter century. Information has been moving round the globe at an unprecedented speed and it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to keep pace with it. An excellent research article published in an American, British or a German journal can be downloaded by our computer within minutes. In view of this, single most important challenge today before our libraries is to assimilate this change as fast as they can, show this in their imporved working and all this is to be done without loosing their identity. Managing change especially of such a vast magnitude and having far reaching repercussions is obviously not an easy task for the simple reason that it involved resourced of the institution, processes of the new technology and emotions of the human beings associated with them.
There are various factors that may influence the change in the libraries. These factors can be both internals well as external. There are four major areas that constitute the contents of this change viz. quality, marketin, technology and costs. In order to bring about changes in these four major ingredients of change, libraries will have to assimilate change in three other respects viz. strategy, structure and human resource management. These three elements would determine the process of change. Finally any change to be socially beneficial and operationally effective has to be driven by value-based and competent leadership.
INFORMATION MARKETING :
Information Marketing is one of the major levers of change in the context of libraries and information centers. The concept of information marketing is of relatively recent origin and is becomiing popular day by day.
The new role of information as commodity' is now widely accepted and this has made its management, as a resource, necessary, information as a commodity includes information products, information services as well as different channels that carry information.
Information marketing means creation of need and awareness of information services and products among the users. Information about what services and products among the users. Information about what services and products a library can provide, from where these can be secured, what is the cost that one has to pay for obtaining them etc. should reach the users Information marketing begins with the assessment of information needs of users and ends with the satisfaction of the users. The intermediate stages consist of
a)Production of products and services for the users
b)Use of these products and services by the users
c)Getting feedback from the users about the usefulness of these services and products, and
d)Modifications to be introduced in the services and products to improve them.
There are significant differences between services and products. Certain characteristics of services make their marketing more challenging. Libraries are basically service organizations. It is therefore, quite useful to consider these distinctive characteristics of services.
They are -
(1)Intangibility :Services by their very nature are intangible. They cannot be seen, touched or tested, but they can certainly be experienced when made available to the users and used by them.
(2)Inseparability :- Services are inseparable from a person or an organization or any other source that provides them. Moreover, the production and consumption in case of tangible products are independent activities where as in case of services, both production and consumption are inseparable and at most of the times simultaneous.
(3)Variabilility :- Services are highly variable because they depend on the sources which provide them and there are differences in time, quality and place where why are provided. Services vary from user to user and sometimes they vary according to need of the users. While these feature pose quality problems, variability in the quality of services, largely heterogeneous in nature, canot be avoided.
(4)Perishability :- Services cannot be stored. They must be produced on demand and cannot be inventorised.
(5)Ownership :- Ownership of services cannot be transferred as in case of products. One cannot buy and own services.
Marketing of products is relatively easy because they are tangible, their supply is not perishable and quality is not highly variable. However, in the context of library and information centers, marketing of information services is very important because they are carefully directed to meet specific requirements of the users, they can go a long way in improving the image of the library and can also generate resources for the library.
Need of information marketing :
Libraries invest huge amount on collection, development processing, storage and dissemination of available information resources. These resources, which are so expensive often remain underutilized or unutilized which amounts to wastage of money. time, energy and space. Marketing provides for optimum utilization of information resources. Sometimes, users are not keen on fulfilling them. Marketing helps to facilitate need perception and understanding about the importance of information and thereby creates demand for information. Thus, information needs of the users can be better fulfilled and satisfaction of the users gets improved. Extension of information services and products to potential users is made possible in an efficient manner with the help of marketing. Finally, the most important advantage of marketing information services and products is that it helps to improve the image of libraries and status of information providers and thus, improves the satisfaction of information providers too.
Marketing of Library and information Services and Products of Smt. H.M.Library: A Feasibility Study.
A feasibility study was conducted in 1997 for Smt. Hansa Mehta Library, which is a University Library of the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda (subsequently referred to in this paper as the M.S.University of Baroda|) and is one of the largest in the country. It possesses about 6.41 Lakhs docuements, subscribes to 931 periodicals and journals, has about 54.367 bound periodicals and has registered membership of about 7,000 A distinguishing feature of this library is its excellent rare book collection. The rich collection of this library attracts not only staff and students of university, but also attracts people from industrial establishments in and around Baroda city, visitors of the city, school children and teachers, senior citizens of the city and foreign visitors as well.
The journals and periodicals have become very expensive in recent years and so are the books. Some of the journals possessed by this library are very expensive and beyond the reach of even the rich sections of the society. Therefore, even well to do individuals and industrial, trading and commercial establishemnts depend on this library. Thus, the utility of this library's resources stretches far beyond the need of the university community. Secondly, nay information resources are beingh found underutilized or unutilized after spending so much on their acquisition. And thirdly, o acquire expensive books and periodicals, the grants given to the libary are not sufficient. Therefore, a systematic attempt was made to study and explore the feasibility of marketing library and information services and products of Smt. Hansa Mehta Library (the M.S, University library system.)
ISSN: 0975 –6701| NOV 11 TO OCT 12 | Volume 2, Issue 1Page 1
JOURNAL OF INFORMATION, KNOWLEDGE AND RESEARCH IN HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES
SampleTable 1
Broad category and total number of sample under study.
Category of smaple Total No.ofTotal No. of
sample selected responses received
1.Uswers of Smt. H.M.library139131
1.1Teachers and research scholars of
the M.S.University.8680
1.2Deposit members of Smt. H.M.library 2725
1.3Non-member users of Smt. H.M.library 2626
2Librarians of the libraries in the States of
Gujarat and outside which market infor- 76
mation services and products.
3.The librarian (officer on special duty) of
Smt. H.M.library 11
Total147138
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Thus, the total sample for the study for the study consisted of 147 respondents out of which 138 responded, which gave a high response ratio of 93.87%.
Tools and Tecchniques :
As the target population was quite large and literate and as the time available for data collection was rather limited, questionnaire method was used as the primary data collection tool for the study. Four different questionnaries were developed for four different categories of respondents viz. teachers and research scholars of the M.s.University of Baroda, deposit members of the library. non-member users of the library and librarians of the libraries which market information services and products. A pilot study was conducted with a view to pre-test the validity of the questionnaire. Apart from getting resonses through questionnaries, the librarian of Smt. H.M.library was interviewed on the same theme and his views on the major aspects related to information marketing were sought with the objective of strengthening the study.
Data Analysis and Findings :
An Analysis of the data of this study leads to certain findings regarding the feasibility of information marketing for Smt. H.M.Library. The major finding of the study may be sumnmarized as below.
1.Almost all respondents of the first two categories i.e.teachers, research scholars and deposit members need information reguloarly and to satisfy
their information requirements, they use Smt. H.M.Library regularly. However, majority of the respondents also use other libraries in and outside Baroda city to fulfill their information needs.
2.A list of information services and products of the library that are found very important and valuable to users of all the categories and for which they are also willing to pay is given below.
a.Extra home reading tickets
b.Increased deposit amount for research scholars and deposit members
c.Literature search
d.Service charges on yearly basis
e.Increased photocopying charges
f.Bibliographies
g.Inter-library loan
h.Quality reference service
i.New arrival lists
It is observed that more than 80% of research scholars and 92% of deposit members are also ready to pay library membership fee on yearly basis, which, indicates that, money is not a constraint, if quality services and products are provided on time.
3.Majority of respondents are willing to pay for the value added serivces which are likely to be introduced in the future by the library.
Table - 2
Willingness of teaqcherts, research scholars and deposit members to pay for the information services and products if introduced in future by Smt. H.M.Library.
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Information Service/Product Willingness to pay(in%)
Responses of Responses of
teachers and deposit members
research scholars
1.CAS73.75(59) 72.00(18)
2.SDI90.00(72) 64.00(16)
3.Abstracting Service81.25(65) 68.00(17)
4.Indexing Service67.50(54) 56.00(14)
5.Translation Service57.50(46) 56.00(14)
6.On-Line Searches63.75(51) 56.00(14)
7.CD ROM Searches60.00(48) 52.00(13)
8.E-mail75.00 (60) 60.00(15)
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N.B.Figures in brackets indicate number of respondents.
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Thus, all services listed in the table, have very high potential of attracting not only more users to the library but also generating more revenues. Aparts from the services mentioned, many users are willing to pay if the facilities like internation library loan, reviews of literature, fax, Internet etc are proviced y the library.
(1)The librarian of Smt. H.M.Library has shown his views in favour of information marketing in general and for Smt. H.M.Library in particular.
(2)Out of six libraries that responded to the questionnaire, three are not only promoting information services and products but are also generating considerable amount of resources. Moreover, from these three, two are academic libraries, which shows that academic libraries have already started information marketing successfully in the country.
The conclusion that can be drawn from all these findings is that it is very much feasible for Smt. H.M.Library to market its information services and products to various categories of users.
Important suggestion of users of Smt. H.M.Library :
The services of the library should be made prompt and accurate to save the time of the users.
The library should subscribe to more specialized periodicals. If it is not possible due to financial constraints, a copy of the content pages should be procured on request.
To reduce the number of time-passers significantly and increase the number of genuine users, the library must start collecting membership charges on daily, monthly or yearly basis as the case may be.
REFERENCES :
Harigopal (K) (2001), Management of Organizational Change: transformation. New Delhi, Response Books.Pp 341.
Pandya (Shweta)(1997) Marketing of library and information services and products of Smt. Hansa Mehta Library (the M.S.University library system). A feasibility study. Un published dissertation. The M.S.University of Baroda, Baroda, Gujarat Pp 207.
Smt.(Steve), Ed.(1999)Create that change !Readymade tools for change management. New Delhi. Kogan Page Pp 163.
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