Shamila Ramjawan, Marketing & Communications Manager at Sabinet graduated last night with an MBA from UNISA School of Business Leadership. She achieved a distinction for her thesis which was second overall for the class of 2011 with her topic being “Identifying marketing tools and strategies to provide a platform to non-users in the use of library and information services”
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This study covers some of the issues relating to marketing strategies and tools that can be used to attract non-users of LIS and products. The reason for this study arose from the fact that the information services staff of The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), one of the largest research organisations in Africa, had become aware that the names of some senior researchers had not, during the past year appear on the service usage statistics. With having a success rate of 94% in customer satisfaction surveys conducted during the same period, it is apparent that the information supplied by the information specialists was of value to other research staff. The question then was: why were these senior staff members not approaching the CSIR LIS staff for assistance?
The aim of the study was to establish what the reason(s) were and to then, if they are truly non-users, make recommendations regarding strategies to follow to ensure that they are reached.
The research was broken down into three objectives:
- To identify and recommend tools and strategies that could be used to reach non-users of services and products
- To equip librarians and information professionals with advice regarding specific strategies to follow within their context
- To investigate actual reasons for non-use at the CSIR
Shamila’s research project is available on the UNISA Institutional Repository:http://uir.unisa.ac.za/handle/10500/4456