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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.

This article aims to dispel the perception that academic libraries do not need to market their services and resources; to acquaint academic librarians to the concept of word‐of‐mouth marketing and its potential for academic libraries; and to share a word‐of‐mouth marketing academic library success story.

Includes an introduction to the concept of word‐of‐mouth marketing and its application to academic libraries. Also includes how one academic library successfully employed this marketing technique.

Provides an introduction to the word‐of‐mouth marketing strategy and its usefulness for academic libraries. Shares a real‐life success story of academic library word‐of‐mouth marketing.

Useful as an introduction for academic librarians to a specific type of marketing strategy that works well in a college/university setting and provides some successful techniques of word‐of‐mouth marketing for academic libraries.

Helps fill a void relative to using marketing strategies in an academic library setting and offers suggestions on how to do this successfully.

The IFLA International Marketing Award was brought out in 2002 to libraries to employ marketing and bring out better results and identify the best marketing practices the world over. Now, the award has become a success story and through this paper efforts have been put up to showcase the award before library and information professionals around the world.

The primary data relating to award applications received each year have been collected and used to analyse and interpret in a meaningful way.

The IFLA International Marketing Award was introduced in 2001 and was awarded for the first time in 2002. Since then, this award recognises the first, second and third runner‐ups each year based on the marketing project in all kinds of libraries, worldwide. The award has attracted 276 applications from 55 countries during the last ten years. The paper analyses the award applications chronologically, geographically and by type of library. It also discusses the winning libraries and their marketing activities. It concludes that the award has become a success story and is expected to reach two new countries each year and 750 libraries from 75 countries in the next ten years.

The paper will be useful for library and information professionals to understand the value of marketing being practised around the world and will encourage them to employ a better marketing approach in the libraries.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the value of marketing in academic libraries and how the marketing concept is applied in practice to marketing academic library services through the experiences of academic libraries across the USA.

The paper focuses on using marketing as a managerial tool to accomplish strategic organizational goals and objectives, discusses challenges and opportunities in academic library marketing, presents examples demonstrating innovative methods that academic libraries have used to market their images and services, and offers suggestions for developing marketing plans and strategies.

The paper finds that market research allows libraries to understand better the points of view of their student and faculty library users, as well as the perspectives of campus administrations and the community external to the college. The result is that the library is more successful in gaining visibility and support for its efforts, and library users are more successful in making the best use of the services available to them to meet their academic and research goals.

The paper offers practical solutions for academic libraries in the global community.

Libraries are facing serious competition from the ‘profit’ information industry which has seen the potential of an ever‐increasing information service sector. Sophisticated information retrieval systems, and management information systems are finding their way into research organisations and business corporations, areas traditionally served by libraries. Until recently the concept of marketing non‐profit organisations has been considered inappropriate, centred around the underlying theory that such organisations are not involved in an exchange process. With the extension of the exchange concept, marketing as a tool has been applied in the non‐profit sector with a degree of success. Marketing requires analysis and planning and the view that promotion is marketing is misleading. The components of a good marketing strategy include not only a promotional campaign but also product analysis, the development of appropriate outlets for the products, and an effective pricing structure. These mix components are reviewed with an emphasis on the most neglected area, product analysis. Libraries' core products are examined and the appropriateness of the product life‐cycle concept is discussed. In conclusion, the article suggests that a change in attitude to marketing may help libraries to improve their image and to attract users. Through careful analysis, planning and implementation of marketing the survival of libraries may be less doubtful in a rapidly changing technological world.

Highlights some of the common problems of library planning in the Caribbean and elaborates on the steps involved in the marketing planning process. Responds to the desire for further enlightenment on the subject of marketing planning expressed by some of the participants who attended a workshop on marketing planning for information professionals, which was organised by the Department of Library and Information Studies at the University of the West Indies, Kingston, Jamaica. Discusses the various aspects of marketing planning which are of general interest and of interest to information professionals generally.

The purpose of this article is to discuss Peter Drucker's theory of marketing in the context of strategic planning and change (innovation) in libraries. With the need for change and innovation accelerating within all types of libraries, it is increasingly important for libraries to adopt a marketing orientation, integrating a marketing plan into the overall strategic planning process.

This paper employs case study methodology to demonstrate one library's attempt to integrate a marketing plan into the library's overall strategic planning activity, using this process to move the library towards a marketing orientation. The paper also provides a viewpoint based on the author's experience and the teachings of Peter Drucker.

Libraries must adopt a marketing orientation in order to remain viable into the future. As Drucker stated, “it is the customer who determines what a business is”. It is imperative libraries understand what their customer values and needs in order to develop services and provide resources to meet these needs.

This paper examines Peter Drucker's theory of business and marketing as it applies to libraries and highlights the systems framework called the Drucker Management System, described by Joseph Maciariello in his article “Marketing and innovation in the Drucker Management System”.

All libraries are concerned with customer satisfaction. A powerful philosophy to assist an organization towards customer satisfaction is the marketing concept. This involves identifying customer needs and requirements and then seeking to meet those needs. The traditional role of the librarian as a storekeeper is not consistent with the adoption of the marketing concept. In addition, the role of libraries as service providers in the public sector has not led to a focus on marketing. Reviews the basic concepts associated with the establishment and implementation of a marketing strategy, including the components of the marketing mix. Suggests that libraries would benefit from a more direct focus on the marketing concept, with clearly defined marketing strategies.

Briefly considers the concept of marketing and outlines the characteristics of marketing management. Discusses marketing for non‐profit organizations and indicates the use of marketing techniques for libraries and information centres. Also indicates methods of applying marketing techniques to library and information centres.

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.