Abstract:
Academic libraries are currently experiencing changes in the new information age, due to
rapidly changing media technologies, increasing users’ preferences and expectations,
competition from other information providers such as internet and dwindling library budgets.
These necessitate library and information science professionals leverage on competitive
marketing approaches to strategically reorient themselves and libraries as information
superhighways that individuals cannot do without. This study was an investigation of the
strategies employed by Academic Libraries in Marketing of Library and Information
Services: A comparative study of selected Public and Private University Libraries in Zambia
which included; UNZA, Evelyn Hone, Cavendish University and DMI St Eugene libraries. A
total of four librarians participated in the research from the four universities respectively. The
main data collection instrument was structured interviews used to elicit information from all
librarians. The findings reviewed that participants were fully aware of the benefits of
marketing activities in their various university libraries and were making efforts at making
their users aware of their library and information services that these university libraries
market to their patrons. Major challenges hamper effective marketing of library and
information services. The researchers recommended that: increasing funds and man power by
increasing the finances allocated to the academic libraries, employing more librarians to
enhance service delivery, making student participation during orientation mandatory to make
the exercise effective and finally, increasing support from management to help the
functioning of the library.
