Marketing the library  : A casestudy of the public library in Broby

The purpose of this master thesis is to use marketing theory on the library’s activities. The marketing theory used is the 4Ps; product, price, promotion and place, as it's presented by Philip Kotler. Because the library can be seen as a service oriented organization Christian Gronroos theory of marketing in the service industry also has been used. A case study of the public library in Broby was made to illustrate how the public libraries’ activities can appear in the light of marketing theory. The library went through a dynamic development during the case study, due to the fact that the library moved to a new location. The staff and their manager are aware of that they work in a certain context. Their target groups have special needs and the groups get their information from certain places which the library take advantage of. They also use the institutional channels in the public sector such as the public schools to get their message out. According to marketing theory the context is essential to be able to adapt the products you promote and how you do it. Price has long not been an issue for the libraries’ services but price can also be non-monetary. Its important to know what this price consist of to be able to lower it. It might also depend on the context. The staff believes in the importance of the services that the library provide to the community and promote it to their users. But the employees feel that there is a misconceptions of the library as a collection of books, which they want to change. Because the library offer intangible goods, services, it is hard to change, because the most tangible the library offers are the books. To be able to grasp the service the user therefore focus on these. To get away from this the library can materialize the library’s services in other ways which takes the focus away from the books