Academic Librarians Perception and Attitude towards Marketing of Library Services in Delta State, Nigeria

Abstract This study examined academic librarian’s perception and attitude towards marketing of library services in Delta State, Nigeria. The design of the study is descriptive survey. The population consists of 146 academic librarians in Delta State, Nigeria. Four research questions guided the study. The research instrument for the study was questionnaire. Out of 146 questionnaires administered, 138 were retrieved and analyzed using arithmetic mean, simple percentage. The major findings of the study were as follows: Academic librarians have positive perception and positive attitude towards marketing of library services; academic librarians are faced with some challenges such as casual approach of some librarians in supplying information to potential users, absence of marketing as a subject field in course of training and lack of support from library management. The study implies that academic librarians’ sources of knowledge and information in marketing like workshop, conferences, seminars, short courses should be encouraged to improve their performance in rendering library services to users, maintain a positive attitude towards marketing of library services as well as compete with other information providers. The educational values of the study lies on the recommendation that marketing as a subject field should be included in the curriculum of all library schools to equip librarians with the pre-requisite skills in marketing so as to remain the vital hub of information to her users