SUCCESSFUL STRATEGY. Rizal Library Director Lourdes David says that marketing the library itself increased the use of its resources considerably. Photo by Raisa M. Tumbocon.
A RESEARCH paper written by Rizal Library Director Lourdes David and Ateneo BookBench Moderator Karryl Sagun has gained international recognition.
The academic work, entitled “Increasing Awareness and Use of the Library’s Resources and Facilities Through Relationship Marketing Strategies,” was published in the Vol. 33 Issue 4/5 of the international journal Library Management.
“[The journal] is good because it’s an [Institute for Scientific Information] peer-reviewed journal… That means to say it has been reviewed by people who understand your research and feel that it is worthy of being published,” David said.
Six months before being published, the paper had been presented at the 3rd International Conference on Qualitative and Quantitative Methods in Libraries in Athens, Greece.
Research and assessment
David wrote the paper in early 2011 and gathered data together with Sagun.
“Since I’m the moderator of BookBench, I’m hands-on [when it comes to the] job regarding relationship marketing strategies. So it makes sense to get me involved because I can give the examples, the first-hand experience,” Sagun said. The Ateneo BookBench is the official student partner group of the Rizal Library.
David said that librarians are not really required to do research. “We are here to provide service,” she said, “but because we have to find out how our users are reacting to the services that we offer, we find it necessary to do research.”
Meanwhile, Sagun believes that the publication of their research is just a bonus. “I didn’t expect it to be published… And, even if it wasn’t presented, it’s still worth doing the research because we will implement it anyway,” she said in a mix of English and Filipino.
Marketing the library
By March 2010, the Rizal Library’s collection included 370,000 print volumes of books, 18 databases, 45,000 e-books and more than 20,000 e-journals, most of them underutilized.
Sagun pointed out that students are paying for library services in their tuition fee. She thus suggested that students make full use of the resources the Rizal Library has to offer.
David said, “We [engaged in] marketing and promotion because we realized that if we do not make ourselves visible to students and faculty, very few of them will come to the library.”
“We tried a different strategy: relationship marketing, which means that we try to become visible to everybody and we communicate with our students and faculty,” she explained. “Instead of marketing the product, we will market ourselves.”
The program has resulted in a high customer retention rate. “If you start with the lowest as one and 10 is the highest, I would say nasa 8 kami (we give ourselves an 8),” David said.
Planning for the relationship marketing effort began in 2007, although the first wave of its implementation came in 2009.
“Before you can embark on relationship marketing, you have to have a good product… So we had to wait until after we have built this [new] library [and] fixed everything,” David said.
The marketing effort’s success indicators, as mentioned in the paper, include the increased use of e-resources, the establishment of a library club by the students and the creation of a new position called the “Assistant to the Director for Special Programs and Events.”
Marketing and promotion—the focus for fiscal years 2011-2013—is the last part of the Rizal Library’s strategic development, as stated in the paper.
For fiscal years 2001-2005, the library developed the professional and personal competencies of its human resources through an in-house training program, seminars and workshops.
Afterwards, facilities and information resources were developed for fiscal years 2006-2010.
Adaptation, evolution
When Sagun started working in the Rizal Library, the plan then was to train the faculty so that they can influence students to use the resources of the library more.
However, she had another idea: “I said, ‘Why not involve the students themselves?’ The faculty is already saturated, like they already know what to do. But what about the students?”
In this regard, the BookBench has already carried out several projects to increase awareness of the library’s services and activities.
“We make sure that the youth can relate to it; we always think of what’s popular,” said BookBench President Anna Lorraine Uy. “[It is serious], but at the same time, we try to catch their attention.”
While the library is catching the attention of more and more students online, though, some want heightened on-campus presence.
Freshman Miguel Soriano believes that the library’s efforts are lacking in this respect. “I don’t go online often so I’m not aware [of the promotions]… I think they need to be more visible on campus.”
David acknowledged that aside from being active on social networking sites, the library could work on its actual presence on campus.
Nevertheless, David made an assurance that the library is constantly seeking to improve. “It’s not a constant going up or leveling. There are times when we dip in terms of service, and then we have to recover,” she said.
