INFORMATION MARKETING AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP AS STRATEGIES FOR SUSTAINING LIBRARIES IN AN INFORMATION AGE

Abstract

A library is an example of a non-profit organization that primarily produces services rather than products. The qualities of being intangible, indestructible, verifiable, and perishable make services special in their nature. In light of the current economic climate, information marketing and entrepreneurship have thus become prerequisites for maintaining library services. This essay critically explains this pattern in explicit detail. It explains the ideas of entrepreneurship, information, and information marketing. The value of entrepreneurship and marketing to librarians and library users. It went on to explain why entrepreneurship holds the key to the substance of libraries in this competitive age by citing factors that work against the success of entrepreneurial opportunities in information marketing, such as a lack of entrepreneurship skills among librarians, a lack of infrastructure facilities that aid marketing in libraries, and deficiencies in proper funding, among others. This study makes several recommendations, including the need for information practitioners to receive updated training in marketing and entrepreneurship, as well as the inclusion of information marketing and entrepreneurship in library and information science programmes.