Abstract
The study investigates the impact of promotional tools on marketing of library services. The study explores the relationship between promotional tools constructs: personal selling, sales promotion, public relations and advertising on marketing of library services among selected Polytechnics in Ghana. With the aid of SPSS, the following statistical method were employed: supporting literature for measurement scales, values of cranach’s alpha for construct values, descending means of constructs, skewness and kurtosis on the constructs, correlations and regression analyses on a sample of 402 obtained through convenience sampling method. The study revealed that, all the constructs of the promotional tools thus personal selling, sales promotion, public relations and advertising have significant positive relationship with marketing of library services. The study suggests that the professional training of library staff should include courses such as personal selling, sales promotion, public relations and advertising. . Library staff should be trained and develop skills on how to handle users request and establish a good personal relationship with users of the library. Library staff should be oriented on the procedures to handle complaints and find lasting sloutions to them. Users should be updated with the list of new databases, online services and new journals via notice board, leaflets and newsletters as well as the institutional websites. Library staff should collaborate with professional markerters on the application of the marketing mix in the promotion of their services.
 Keywords: Advertising, Personal selling, Sales promotion, Public relations, Academic libraries
Highlights
The concept of marketing has been transferred from business to public service organizations
The results show that service providers who orientate towards collectivism in their cultural value structure will perceive personal selling as an important promotional tool and spend more of their promotion budget on personal communication tools such as personal selling and will continue to do so
The study was the assessment of the impact of promotional tools on marketing of library services in an academic setting in a developing country like Ghana with specific emphasis on three Polytechnics namely (Koforidua, Accra and Kumasi)
Summary
The concept of marketing has been transferred from business to public service organizations. Since 1970, it has been seen that marketing principles can be applied to non-profit organizations like the library (Adeyoyin, 2005). In recent years, marketing has been important for reasons like self protection, the existence of competitors, an increase in customers' expectations, and wide access to information. Kotler and Fox (1995) provide the following definition of marketing in relation to higher education. Dodsworth (1998) believes that the changes in society have led to creation of opportunities and threats for libraries. Other surveys that show a majority of people using search engines in preference to library resources has been the cause of alarm among librarians who see libraries in danger of losing their place as an information provider (Fialkoff ,2006)
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