Date of Award

4-2024

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education

Department

Education

First Advisor

Lynda Leavitt

Second Advisor

Michelle Whitacre

Third Advisor

Jeffrey Deckelbaum

Abstract

The dissertation in practice was an effort to understand the relationship between communication and marketing strategies and students, faculty, and staff at a university library. The problem of practice reflected messaging challenges facing academic libraries over decades of change with rapidly changing technologies and changing stakeholder perceptions about libraries in an academic setting. The mixed-methods approach was guided by the user-centered design thinking process and endeavored to discover how a formalized marketing effort could positively shift longstanding stakeholder perceptions and increase engagement with university library resources and services. The methodology used by the scholar practitioner combined quantitative surveys, usage data, and qualitative focus group results to gather a comprehensive reflection of user perceptions and awareness about the academic library. Usage data was assessed to determine increases post- implementation of the marketing plan, 5-point Likert scale surveys were distributed post-implementation to students, faculty, and staff/ administrators to measure levels of awareness; and concurrent focus groups were held to gather nuanced insights from stakeholder groups to understand individual experiences with the plan and gain perspective on initiatives moving forward. Key findings did not reveal statistically significant increases in usage post-implementation usage data, but raw data did indicate modest increases which led the scholar practitioner to determine longer term assessment would be necessary. Survey data reflected low levels of awareness about the marketing campaign, but also revealed generally positive attitudes toward library resources and services. Focus group results reflected positive attitudes by participants and offered valuable insights for refining the marketing plan moving forward. Findings from the study underscored the complexities of launching a marketing plan in alignment with all user needs, as well as the need for continued measurement of success and failure of initiatives. However, working within the framework of the design thinking process provided the scholar practitioner with a benchmark to build upon and to refine the prototype based on quantitative results and qualitative stakeholder input.

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