Marketing of Electronic Information Resources (EIRs) in Private Higher Education Institutions (PHEIs) in Ethiopia

Abstract

This research was conducted to investigate the available marketing strategy in the light of increasing the awareness and uptake of Electronic Information Resources (EIRs) by users of PHEIs that are registered in Program for the Enhancement of Research Information (PERI). In an attempt to achieve the research objective, such research questions as “what marketing approaches are used by the libraries to promote the existence of EIRs in the institutions surveyed?”; “are there enabling infrastructures that assist the marketing of EIRs?”; “how do institutional libraries rate the level of support from the top management in their effort to market EIRs?”; “as part of marketing strategies, do institutions link up EIRS with courses in their graduate programs?” and “are there adequate human resource capacities to handle the marketing of EIRs?” were considered. The targeted institutions for the research were St. Mary’s University College (SMUC) and Alpha University College as they were PHEIs that are the only ones currently registered in PERI and delivering postgraduate program education. Survey research methodology was used and review of PERI system and publisher databases to map the contents against the graduates programs were made. Major findings of the study revealed that marketing using electronic communication, physical medium, human interaction and using training are practiced in the surveyed institutions, there is adequate infrastructure in SMUC to market EIRs, level of support from the top management towards marketing of EIRs is minimal in the surveyed institutions and the available human resource is adequate to handle marketing of EIRs generally. It was also concluded that there are positive developments in the marketing of EIRs in the surveyed institutions in the light of maintaining quality in graduate program and research endeavors. Based on the major findings, it was recommended that efforts must be made by PHEIs to integrate marketing of EIRS as part of collection development policy; as part of handling marketing using electronic communication, institutions must strengthen their effort and incorporate utilization of web 2.0; top management must be one of the prime champion in the institutional efforts to market EIRs to maintain quality in graduate program and research; existing effort in AUC in linking up EIRs and graduate programs must be strengthened and SMUC and other PHEIs must also follow suit and Capacity building schemes endeavors must be designed by such stakeholders as Consortium of PHEIs and Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries (CEARL) to enable librarians engage themselves in aggressive marketing of EIRs.