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The Implementation of Marketing Strategy for Quality Management in Political Science Library, Chulal
Political Science Library, Chulalongkorn University
Thailand

The Problem

Political Science Library, Chulalongkorn University is a public university. We were under pressure from the four crisis factors: low budget, competition from other sources of information, the Library staff’s ignorance of user needs and the emerging of postgraduate level in the Faculty.
Firstly, we had a very small amount of budget for instance, during the year 1998 to 2001 we received about US$ 35,000-45,000 annually which was inadequate to provide library services to university community. The budget provided during those years was not enough to purchase useful materials such as books and computers and to subscribe to journals and online databases because of the rising costs of these reading resources. Due to the limitation of the fund, almost all of them had to be spent on routine works in collection development, acquisitions and information preservation and hence we had no budget left to provide a variety of services to meet the increasing and different demands from users.
Secondly, because of rapid change in information technology, there were alternatives available such as internet which users could use search engines to search the information they needed. Because of the convenience, this information seeking behavior was the trend that would reduce the need of users to come to library, without realizing that to what extent they can rely into information they obtained from those search engines.
Thirdly, improving service quality did not always result in users’ satisfaction since there were many cases that the kinds of service already improved and provided were not those needed by the users. The critical issue was that what were the users’ expectations in the services, resources and facilities and how to meet those expectations.
Fourthly, there were changes in curriculum such as introduction of new postgraduate level courses. The issues came from part-time students who were much more senior than full-time students. The Part-time students were having difficulties in searching information by themselves but always requested library staff to search and provide information to them which created more work load to our limited number of library staff.
From the above-mentioned trend and conditions, there were not much users in the Library. During the year 1998-2001, on average, we had about 733 users and 156 books were borrowed per day. From the poor amount of users and resources usage, it was very difficult for the library to justify and ask for higher budget. Therefore, this situation pushed the Library into crisis cycle that they could not overcome and hence could not provide services to users at the satisfactory level.
Those situations had direct impact to professors and students in the Faculty, professors and students in the University community and the external visitors who came to the Library. The inadequate budget, resources and services deterred the users from coming to the Library. Therefore, the Faculty Administrators paid little attention to the Library and also had the tendency to ignore the roles and the importance of the Library.

Solution and Key Benefits

 What is the initiative about? (the solution)
Our initiative was to implement of marketing strategy for quality management in the Library.
Marketing approach is useful to understanding the users so as to satisfy their needs in an effective way therefore we became aware of the need to market our products and services. The rational behind this initiative was due to the fact of the pressures as already mentioned. Apart from that, the rising costs of materials and services such as internet and online services emphasized that we were in the middle of crisis and we need to get out of. We fully believed that we would not be able to get support from the Faculty Administrators unless we get full support from our users. Moreover, we could be even forced
to downsize or reduce staff if we did nothing.
We need to have a better understanding in our users’ expectations. Therefore, we were more aggressive in collecting relevant data from users about their needs and expectations. Then after implementing the practices of 16 marketing library services during the year 2003-2007, data were collected through interview, Kano questionnaire and benchmarking. We interviewed 25 student users (5 target groups from 5 Faculties in Chulalongkorn University) in order to find out their needs and expectations. Then we used the Kano questionnaire for 398 users in the Political Science Library in order to have an understanding in which requirements were more critical for the satisfaction of the users. Each question consequently has two parts: how do you feel if Library has that services (functional form of the question), and how do you feel if Library has not have that services (dysfunctional form of the question). Kano groups can be examined mainly in 3 categories: basic requirements, one-dimensional requirements and attractive requirements. Finally we benchmarked Political Science Library with 4 social sciences faculties in Chulalongkorn University and 2 social sciences faculties in Thammasat University.
Achievements after the implementation of marketing strategy for quality management in the Library were the high level of users’ satisfaction ( = 3.91 from 1-5 scale), When the users were satisfied with the services, resources and facilities provided by the Library, they borrowed more books which increase the utilization of the Library resources. The number of book borrowed increased from 185 books per day in 2001 to 235 books per day in 2007 (academic year 2007 started from June 2007 to March 2008) or increase by 27%. The Library also obtained more recognition from users including Faculty Administrators and hence was granted more budgets. The budget provided to Library was increased from Thai Baht 2.979mil (US$ 85,630 at 34.8 Baht/US$) in 2001 to Thai Baht 4.150 mil (US $ 119,253) in 2007 or increase by 39.3%. Therefore, after the initiatives, the Library had more budgets to acquire necessary resources to provide services and facilities to meet users’ expectations than before.

Actors and Stakeholders

 Who proposed the solution, who implemented it and who were the stakeholders?
As the head librarian, I (Mrs. Narumon Kijpaisalratana) was the one who proposed the solution. I and staff in my team were the ones who implemented it. The stakeholders were academicians, graduate students, undergraduate students and faculty staff in Faculty of Political Science, in University community and the external visitors.
Soon after I realized that we need to use marketing approach in marketing our products and services, I started to study for more details on how to carry out the practices of library marketing program. Then I proposed the initiatives to the University Administrators to approve the initiative and budgetary support. I allocated the budget, developed marketing strategies and implemented 16 services.
Apart from myself and my staff in the Library who contributed to the design and implementation of this initiative, I also consulted with Dr. Krittinee Nuttavuthisit, Assistant Professor of Marketing, Sasin Graduate Institute of Business Administration of Chulalongkorn University, who advised me on how to design the initiative in detail. Apart from this, Assistant Professor Prasert Akkharaprathomphong, Assistant to the President for Quality Assurance, Chulalongkorn University, also recommended me to integrate Kano model approach to find out, strategically, the most important requirements of the Library users.
According to Kotler (cited from Kotler, Philip. Principles of marketing. 2nd ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1983), the marketing concept requires integrated marketing; the various departments in the organization must realize that the actions they take have a significant effects on the organization’s ability to create, retain, and satisfy consumers.
We need our initiatives to be sustainable and successful. One of the most important results of the activities over the year is the very high level of cooperation among all of our staff in the Library. We realized that the unity among our staff in the Library is very important to the successfulness of the initiatives, neither the administrators nor any single person. All of our Library staff learned to seek cooperation in areas such as operation and development in order to avoid duplicating work and to increase the value of individual efforts. An important area for cooperation is the evaluation of services through user surveys and usability tests, and these have been carried out for a year.

(a) Strategies

 Describe how and when the initiative was implemented by answering these questions
 a.      What were the strategies used to implement the initiative? In no more than 500 words, provide a summary of the main objectives and strategies of the initiative, how they were established and by whom.
The main strategies of the initiative was to develop user-centered and strategic marketing approaches as tools for collecting and analyzing useful data about user needs and expectations and to improve in designing, developing and delivering appropriate services to the users.
We had three steps in implementing the initiatives. Firstly, Library administrators (I and chief librarians) identified library’s objectives. Secondly, Library administrators and the staff identified targeted groups (e.g. lecturers, researchers, undergraduate students, postgraduate students and external visitors) and their unique needs and expectations. Thirdly, Library staff, in brainstorming sessions and subsequent meetings, developed marketing strategies to meet the needs by adopting marketing mix of the five “Ps” proposed by Angela B. Pfeil (from Pfeil, Angela B. Going places with youth outreach: Smart marketing strategies for your library. Chicago: American Library Association, 2005), included products, prices, place, promoting, and people.
Products, We developed an effective, attractive and user-friendly web site describing the library, information, news about events and promotions, services (coffee corner, hot news, cyber zone, book delivery, POL SCI citation database and citation clinic, etc.) and resources (e-Journals, e-Books, e-Thesis and e-Newspapers) access through http://www.polsci.chula.ac.th/library. This group of services was quite unique and different from services provided by other libraries in the country.
Prices All registered students at the University and services were offered free of charges except for external visitors which the fee was quite low i.e. Baht 20 per visit (US$ 0.57 per visit).
Place It referred to the convenient location. We were concerned for the user’s comfort, psychologically, as well as physically. For example, we provided very clean toilets with music during the library opening hours. We have computer network and wireless area to serve the academic environment effectively and efficiently. So it is convenient for the students, lecturer, researchers and faculty members to enjoy spending time.
Promotion We were very impressed in one of the Five Laws of library science “Books are for use”, proposed by S.R. Ranganathan, known as the father of library science in India. We promoted various kinds of service and encourage the users to borrow more books of which we called “book promotion”. Normally, other libraries in the University allowed undergraduate students to borrow 7 books at a time but our library allowed them to borrow 10 books. Moreover, every Tuesday, we allowed the undergraduate students to borrow up to 13 books at a time. The users could renew the books by themselves via our homepage automatically. We also organized “Book fair”, which was gaining great popularity as mean to draw people to the library and to generate revenue. We solicited book donations from the communities and sold them at the fair. The outcome of book fair is extremely rewarding. Its’ benefit were not only in financial term but also increase in the interest of the community in the library’s activities,
People Our staff attitude is quite positive. We treated the users as our customers. And customers always come first.

(b) Implementation

 b.      What were the key development and implementation steps and the chronology? No more than 500 words
The key development were to identify users’ needs and expectations by using marketing approach, focus on the users, developed and implemented services and activities to meet users’ needs and expectations.
After realizing Library’s various problems in 2002, our survey focused on four major aspects i.e. sufficiency of resources, competence and demeanor of staff, progressive services and physical appearance of facilities. The sample of 343 users covered undergraduate students, postgraduate students, lecturers and external visitors. We found that some of services provided did not meet users need e.g. unavailability of the required books, inconvenience of closed shelf of periodical services and poor quality of copying machines.
After understanding the weakness of our services from that survey and the rapid change in information technology, we conducted brainstorming sessions among our staff, and came up with 16 library marketing services during the year 2003-2007.
By the year 2003 we implemented 4 new services i.e. online searching, interlibrary loans, coffee corner, and conference rooms. In 2004 we implemented 1 new services i.e. citation clinic. In 2005 we implemented 2 new services, i.e. cyber zone and express book service (get the books required within a day). In 2006 we implemented 3 new services i.e. hot news, clean toilets and wireless area. In 2007 we implemented 4 new services i.e. book fair, online book renewal, mid day news and pray room for Muslim students. And in the last quarter of 2008 we implemented 2 new services i.e. online interlibrary loan (requested the book on webpage) and chat reference service (users can interactively discuss with librarian). We confident that these 2 services implemented in 2008 are available only in our library and hence we would call it “Library No Boundary”.
Although all above-mentioned services might be considered not that exciting, they were the kind of services that were not available in any library in the country, during that time.
We carried out SWOT analysis in the year 2007 to analyze the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats and found that the corporate strategy of our library is S-O (strengths and opportunities).
In 2008 we surveyed user satisfaction using depth interview the 25 target groups. From the interview, the users had a consensus that our library differed from other libraries (in the university and within the country) in the area of kindness and courtesy of staff, flexibility of services, environment and facilities.
We used the result of the interview to design Kano questionnaire (proposed by Professor Noriaki Kano) with functional and dysfunctional form of the questions. Besides, we used five determinants, each describing the users’ experiences. These determinants are environment, staff services, electronic and printed materials, technical facilities and services and found that the users’ satisfaction was quite high ( = 3.91 from 1-5 scale).
Finally we benchmarked with 4 social sciences faculties in Chulalongkorn University and 2 social sciences faculties in Thammasat University with 2 indicators:- books borrowed and the number of users in the library.

(c) Overcoming Obstacles

 c.      What were the main obstacles encountered? How were they overcome? No more than 500 words
The main obstacles we encountered were the lack of appropriate staff to look after the marketing activities and services, lack of financial support, lack of understandings in what the users need and expectations and inadequate understanding of staff in strategy and objective of marketing programs in our library.
For lack of appropriate staff, we sent our staff to be trained in how to initiate, plan and implement marketing activities e.g. book promotion, book fair etc. Our staff was also trained how to provide services efficiently and effectively. They were also trained in public relations. After being trained, we assigned each staff with suitable and clear responsibilities e.g. two staff members were assigned to organizing all book fair, one staff was assigned to look after reservation the meeting rooms and the room to pray by Muslim students. One staff member was assigned to look after updating and improving our website and also upload hot news into our webpage etc.
For lack of financial support, as stated earlier during the year 2001, we have low usage of the library resources and services by the users and hence the budget supported was quite low. After realizing the problem, we promoted the use of the book by increasing the maximum number of book that users could borrow at a time, arranged another promotion by allowing users to borrow books more than normal quota every Tuesday. We also provided new kind of services as described above. All activities and promotions during that time were focus on how to implement at very low cost or even no cost. For example, the books were already in the library, allowing the users to borrow more book did not incur any cost at all. When we organized book fair, we solicit some hardware e.g. tents from private company, free of charge. After gaining more recognition both from users and the Faculty Administrators, we were granted more budgets and were enough for us to acquire more and new resources in the library.
For lack of understandings in the user needs and expectations, we did a market research every 2 years since 2002 to survey the market (what other libraries were offering in their services) and also surveyed what were the user needs and their expectations from our library. Besides, we had a suggestion box and floor walking (talk to users) which were useful tools for market research.
We used SWOT analysis in our brain storming sessions to design marketing strategic plan for specific initiatives for each year. We also used 5Ps concept and encouraged all of library staff to jointly involve in the planning of activities.
For the inadequate understanding of staff in strategy and objective of marketing programs in our library, we organized a weekly meeting to discuss about our strategies, objectives and all of our activities in the library. We gave an opportunity to share the experience of the frontline staff.

(d) Use of Resources

 d.      What resources were used for the initiative and what were its key benefits? In no more than 500 words, specify what were the financial, technical and human resources’ costs associated with this initiative. Describe how resources were mobilized
The resources used for the initiative are financial, human resource and hardware e.g. computers.
During the beginning of our initiatives the budget granted to the library was very low. Therefore, we implemented the new services/activities those did not incur cost with sufficient and adequate economy policy e.g. book promotion, book fair, interlibrary loan, clean toilets, coffee corner and the room for Muslim students etc. After gaining more recognition from the Faculty Administrators, the increased budgets during the last few years were used for services those are really need money e.g. new computers and associated system for cyber zone and wireless area, develop our webpage and create chat reference service etc.
For human resources, our staff was poorly trained and overworked. We tackled this issue by assigning staff concerned to attend the appropriate training courses. Some of them attended “Quality assurance” course. Some attended “Online searching” course and some attended “How to provide service efficiently”. All these three training courses were organized in house by Chulalongkorn University, and hence, free of charge. We also sent some of our staff to attend outside training courses e.g. strategic planning, SWOT analysis and balanced scorecard. These training courses were organized by outsiders which we had to request for budget approval on a case by case basis.

Sustainability and Transferability

  Is the initiative sustainable and transferable?
In our view, the initiative is sustainable because it does not require a lot of budget. The key elements are to respond to the users’ need correctly and in a timely manner. We also have to maintain the positive attitudes of our staff towards the quality of service. Teamwork and the sense of ownership are also the key roles in keeping up with the initiative.
We believe that the initiative is transferable by replicating to other faculty libraries, university libraries and other non profit organizations. In our view, there are 2 approaches in transferring the initiative.
The first approach is to promote the initiative through the Thai Library Associations. Use the Associations to promote “Best Practice” in managing libraries. Arrange training courses, visit other libraries. Once a year, organize a competition among all libraries in term of service quality and innovative service etc.
The second approach is a “Top down” approach. It will be for the Ministry of Education to set standards of service for all libraries in public sector. We may have different standards for libraries at different levels. For example, the university libraries must have 30 kinds of service whereas the school libraries must have 15 kinds of service. Or the public libraries must have 10 kinds of service. KPI might be set as targets for each service category. An inspection or a competition in service quality might be arranged on a yearly basis.
In the second approach, if we can implement nationwide efficiently and effectively, it will be a very effective tool to transfer knowledge to people especially those are very poor in the rural areas.

Lessons Learned

 What are the impact of your initiative and the lessons learned?
Impact of our initiative is a major shift in users and the Faculty’s Administrators attitude towards our library. Before our initiatives we did not get recognition from the Administrator and the users but after that, more users are coming to our library. Resources are more utilized, obtained Administrators’ support and more fund provided.
The number of book borrowed in our library is the highest among 38 faculties/institutions in Chulalongkorn University and also highest among social science faculties in other universities in the country for 5 consecutive years from 2004 until now.
In 2007 we were awarded the “Excellence Quality Prize” in the competition organized by Chulalongkorn University. And in 2008 we received “Excellence Prize in The Public Service Quality Awards”, the national competition organized by Office of The Public Sector Development Commission.
The key success factors in our initiatives are user-driven approach, teamwork, sense of ownership and staff motivation.
Being impressed in the statement “The user-driven approach has become a strategic weapon for the organization”, we studied and surveyed regularly on our users’ behavior and individual needs by interview, suggestion box, floor walking and survey research and used them in developing our strategy, objectives and action plans.
It took quite a long time to build up the actively participated teamwork. We organized a weekly meeting to discuss positively about the problems each staff faced in implementing our new services. All staff is helping each other in resolving the problem even it is not his/her problem.
We build up a sense of ownership attitude among our staff. All of them have a feeling that the library is his/her home. Whenever there is any single problem in any area, they are all feeling the pressure, thinking that the problem is their problem, and they are committed to resolve it. In the good day when we were awarded with the 2 prizes mentioned above, they are all extremely happy as well.
For low ranking Thai government officials, if without other sources of income, it will be difficult to have a decent standard of living. After receiving more budget, we extent the opening hour and allocate part of the budget for over-time work by our staff which make them happy. Apart from that, we value all of our staff. Any new service initiated by any staff is recorded and then advise in the meeting of the Faculty Administrators, so that they can have the recognition.
After the initiative, we learned that to meet the target of our service successfully we need to have the following factors. The staff should be considerate, knowledgeable, competent, service-oriented and respond to the users’ need correctly and in a timely manner. Our services should be reliable (consistency and accuracy) and tangible. And we realized that marketing is not only useful in business organizations but it is applicable to public service in public or government sector as well. The continuous improvement is very necessary for the organization to meet the users’ increasing needs and expectations.

Contact Information

Institution Name:   Political Science Library, Chulalongkorn University
Institution Type:   Academia  
Contact Person:   Mrs.Narumon Kijpaisalratana
Title:   Head Librarian  
Telephone/ Fax:   (66)22187333
Institution's / Project's Website:   (66)22187331
E-mail:   narumon_kij@hotmail.com  
Address:   Political Science Library, Chulalongkorn University, Henri Dunant Road, Pathumwan
Postal Code:   10330
City:  
State/Province:   Bangkok
Country:   Thailand

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