Librarians' knowledge of marketing in libraries : A comparative study of two public libraries

The purpose of this survey is to investigate librarians' knowledge and insight on marketing and how they work with marketing based on the issues: How do the surveyed libraries with marketing, what methods/tools/techniques use the surveyed libraries themselves and the knowledge of the responsible librarians about marketing in libraries? Theories used to investigate the marketing of libraries and librarians' knowledge of marketing is mainly the comparative method but also Singh's research on attitudes to marketing and SWOT analysis. The survey focuses on two public libraries in southern Småland, Sweden. The librarians responsible for marketing have been interviewed.The results revealed that the interviewed librarians have good knowledge and understanding of marketing. They use many different marketing methods and marketing strategies. The libraries use their websites and local newspaper advertising in order to market themselves to the public. The libraries consciously and unconsciously use the marketing strategy word-of-mouth. Both libraries in the survey have participated in a project Futurum.Kom where the focus was on marketing.Librarians' knowledge, insights and view on marketing will be described in three themes; the librarians' knowledge, understanding and use of marketing strategies, the librarians' knowledge and the use of marketing strategies and views on marketing strategies and SWOT analysis