Partnership marketing in the operation of the public library

Abstract

Marketing is a specific philosophy of operation and the way of perceiving thebasic principles that should be followed by present-day business and service enterprises. The process of adaptation of marketing for library purposes has been observable in Poland since the 1990 s. Partnership marketing has been growing particularly important in the domain of libraries: its essence consists in developing and maintaining ties with market participants, i.e. customers and other partners of a firm. The present article discusses the importance of relationship marketing in the operation of public libraries, which is oriented towards small mina (commune) libraries. Nowadays, these institutions were compelled to appropriately identify customer needs and to properly satisfy them. High competition on the services market and the necessity of retaining customers makes it necessary to apply marketing principles in their activities. In order to survive and be successful in the present-day world small communal libraries have to conduct activities in cooperation with all kinds of partners, developing permanent ties with them and their customers. The conscious or intuitive application of the principles of partnership marketing brings specific benefits to libraries. This is usually a reduced risk of losing customers, and an opportunity to gain new ones.