Librarians' attitudes towards marketing library services

Abstract

This research set out to explore the attitudes of school, academic and public librarians towards marketing libraries. The main question that was examined is whether personality characteristics such as empowerment, extroversion and resistance to change influence librarians' attitudes towards the marketing of libraries. One hundred and fifty-six participants took part in this study. The research tools included: a personal details questionnaire, extroversion/ introversion questionnaire, attitudes towards marketing a library questionnaire, a resistance to change questionnaire and an empowerment questionnaire. The most important finding of this research was the positive correlation between personal characteristics: empowerment, extroversion and resistance to change and attitudes towards marketing libraries. The results of the current research emphasize the idea that librarians of all branches should be exposed to marketing concepts in order to maintain their central position as information providers despite — and within — the new technologies.