The interest in marketing has tremendously increased over a few decades in libraries like other service sectors, education, health, transportation, insurance, banking, etc. Throughout the world, there has been considerable increasing interest in marketing of library and information services. Some noteworthy factors include:
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Increasing attention of information professionals by way of participation, sharing of experiences and networking through activities and programmes of the IFLA Management and Marketing Section and other international and national professional associations and organizations, like, SLA, ASLIB, ALA, CILIP, CLA, ALIA, ILA, etc.
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Inclusion of Marketing of information and library services in the syllabi of universities of across countries. Though there is no consensus regarding the topics/module/ unit covered in the syllabi, but there is a growing interest in the marketing area and continuously getting larger space in the syllabi of library school all over the world.
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Continuing of the magazine devoted to this area, namely, “Marketing Library Services” (a quarterly of InfoToday.com). Besides, many of the Library and Information Science journals brought out special issues on marketing library and information services. Gupta and Jain (2009) counts such journals include: Catholic Library World, Library Journal, Illinois Libraries, Journal of Library Administration, ASLIB Information, Library Trend, Computers in Libraries, Kirjastolehti, NLA Quarterly, Information Outlook, PNLA Quarterly, SCONUL Focus, DESIDOC Bulletin of Information Technology, Acquisition Librarians, Information and Library Manager, College and Undergraduate Libraries, EBIB Bulletin, Mississippi Libraries, Colorado Libraries, etc,.
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Recognizing the best practices in marketing of library and information services through IFLA International Marketing award and other awards. Gupta, Koontz and McAdams (2010) analyze growth and geographical distribution of the award applications which have come from 55 countries in last 10 years.
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Bringing international developments on marketing library services in the form of publications by ASLIB by Cronin (1981, 1992). An IFLA study by Gupta et.al. (2006) observe that marketing library services has now been recognized as an essential agenda in all kind libraries of world over and the volume include 40 contributions of 47 countries from 20 countries.
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Publishing bibliographical studies/ bibliographies on marketing library services, a paper by Gupta (2008) identifies and analyses 39 bibliographies sources covered in four categories, namely selective, annotated, webliographies and bibliographical reviews.
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Putting efforts to help library professionals by developing online resources. Kaushik (2011) in his study covers analyses such resources on marketing library services, include: Websites, Journal articles, Newsletters, Bibliographies, Conference papers, Book reviews, Blogs, Modules/ Tutorials/ Trainings, E-books, Poster, Toolkit, Wikipedia, e-book, etc.
The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) is the leading international body representing the interests of library and information services and their users. It is the global voice of the library and information profession.
Founded in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1927 at an international conference now has more than 1600 Members in approximately 150 countries around the world. IFLA is an independent, international, non-governmental, not-for-profit organization. Its aims are to (IFLA, 2013):