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The purpose of this paper is to explore the concept of marketing of information products and services in university libraries in Kenya.

The paper utilises literature surveys of currently published articles and the researcher's professional experience.

Marketing is a basic and essential management process for promoting information products and services in university libraries in Kenya, but it is not given the attention it deserves and/or is poorly coordinated. Marketing avails university libraries the unique opportunity to provide quality, and demand‐based and user‐oriented information products and services.

The paper used mainly literature surveys of currently published articles and the researcher's professional experience.

The paper offers reasons, strategies or initiatives and recommendations on how to make university libraries the destination for the user population. In this respect, university libraries should be proactively involved in marketing of information products and services to the user population.

University libraries in Kenya should involve themselves actively in marketing and promotion of information products and services to the information audience. This helps to create awareness among the user population leading to increased use of information products and services in the libraries.

The paper highlights various marketing initiatives of making university libraries in Kenya the destination for the user population. Also, the paper explores recent innovative strategies for marketing information products and services. Marketing helps university libraries to: market and promote information products and services, provide innovative products and services, understand the needs and demands of the information audience or user population, plan service provision, and provide efficient and effective information products and services.

Measures of the library’s productivity assess whether the library is achieving the goals and objectives of its chosen missions. This paper illustrates the concept of placing performance measures within a marketing frame of reference that builds upon the main goal of satisfying user needs. Marketing mandates that all products or services must be developed based upon knowledge of the characteristics of the potential user market, and diverse environmental forces that affect service offerings. The satisfaction of user needs can in part be calculated by the ratio of service output to input, which provides critical data to use in adjusting the library’s marketing strategy, i.e. the library’s products and services, the price or cost of these to the user, where these will be delivered, and how the library’s products and services are communicated to the user. An example, utilizing the general information services department, illustrates a marketing strategy built upon performance measures.

The chapter focused on quality assurance and marketing of library services and products at the Midlands State University (MSU). The chapter's main objective was to identify the quality assurance mechanisms at the MSU Library. The major findings of the research were; the MSU library was practising quality assurance, staff was trained on the latest trends in the profession, the collection was multidisciplinary and in different forms, and that there were Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) used in enhancing service provision. The researcher recommended that the library needed to continuously train librarians on issues to do with quality, improve the infrastructure, introduce Research Data Management to enhance the Research Support Services and improve on the Information Literacy Skills training programmes. The author identified some areas for further research and the major one was that there is need for clarification on the concept of the 4th Industrial Revolution.

Marketing concept is being widely used in all disciplines including library and Information Science domain for disseminating the services, resources and products to the target audiences. Thus, this study aims to define the marketing concept and how libraries can do marketing of their services, resources and products using marketing techniques and tools, such as 7Ps of the marketing mix. This study further pointed out the important internet resources available freely on the marketing of library services on the Internet which can be used by library and Information Science professionals with regard to getting the ideas how to market the library services and resources to the targeted users.

In this article, I have traced the literature of marketing libraries and information services from 1970 to the present. This period immediately follows Kotler and Levy's introductory article in the Journal of Marketing (January 1969) which first suggested the idea of marketing nonprofit organizations. The use of the marketing concept for libraries and information services was an idea which did not appear until after that date. However, many articles on specific aspects of marketing, such as publicity and public relations, were published prior to 1970. These areas have been touched upon only briefly to show their connection with marketing.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the use of social media in the marketing of academic library resources and services in Kuwait and identifies the factors related to the use of social media applications in marketing academic libraries.

A quantitative data-collection approach using a paper and online questionnaire has been employed to elicit the opinions of librarians working in academic libraries in Kuwait in both private and public institutions. In total, 89 valid questionnaires have been analyzed using descriptive (frequencies, percentages, means and standard deviations) and inferential statistics (factor analysis, correlations, experimental analysis and regression).

The study shows that the academic librarians have a positive perception toward the use of social media. The identified factors relating to the use of social media for marketing library information resources and services are the usefulness of social media tools in raising awareness and in providing needs analysis and satisfaction assessments. However, management support for the use of social media for library marketing is poor.

This study provides insights into the factors related to the use of modern social media platforms to promote information resources and services at academic libraries to provide outreach services to current and potential users.

This research contributes to the field of information studies as it highlights the importance of using social media platforms in marketing academic library information resources and services. Library administrators could use the results to develop social media marketing plans to effectively promote their library resources.

In the spring of 1982, I published an article in Reference Services Review on marketing libraries and information services. The article covered available literature on that topic from 1970 through part of 1981, the time period immediately following Kotler and Levy's significant and frequently cited article in the January 1969 issue of the Journal of Marketing, which was first to suggest the idea of marketing nonprofit organizations. The article published here is intended to update the earlier work in RSR and will cover the literature of marketing public, academic, special, and school libraries from 1982 to the present.

Marketing is an important component of libraries and other information centres. In the past, few approaches where used for marketing library collections and services. However, the use of social media tools in marketing library collection and services have over the past many years promise to be an important channel for marketing library collections and services. The purpose of this chapter therefore is to dig answers on the challenges and opportunities of using social media technologies in marketing library services and collections in 21st century environment. The chapter start with a snapshot overview of the importance of marketing library services and collection, highlight social media tools that can be used for marketing library collection and services. In addition, the chapter examines and presents the challenges facing libraries and other information centres in marketing the collection and services in 21st century environment. The methodology that will be used for this chapter is literature review comprising of journal articles, books, conference papers and newspapers articles.

The present paper reflects the gradual change in the need and use of the marketing concepts in libraries and information centres (LICs) and its fruitful effects in the service to the library users, and studies marketing of information products/services in LICs of R&D institutions of Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) of India. The paper discusses the role of these LICs including marketing approach, need and application of a marketing program with the help of a survey. For the survey, data were collected through a detailed mailed questionnaire along with interviews. The findings reveal that librarians have a positive attitude towards the different aspects of marketing of a library's information products/services. The study recommends that currently efforts for increasing user‐awareness and separate financial support are requisite for efficient marketing. Instead of scattered approaches and different styles, a coherent view must be taken.

A study of selected information providing institutions, in particular special libraries, in Gaborone, Botswana, reveals that a majority are in favour of marketing their services to their users. In practice, very few libraries undertake formal marketing planning and prepare marketing plans. Marketing was therefore unplanned. Promotion is the most commonly used element of the marketing mix. However, library marketing can no longer be confined to this one element. The whole range of marketing activities is needed for the effective management of special libraries. It is only through planning, as advocated by the Kotler‐Andreasen‐Keiser approach, that marketing will cease to be equated with promotion and take on its full potential as a vital management tool.