The concept of instituting advertising and marketing principles to non-earnings institutions consisting of library and information Services is no longer a controversy. Organisations operate in an surroundings of alternate. Today we stay in a worldwide market for plenty goods top coders and offerings wherein generation, shopping power and plenty of factors change on a everyday foundation. One of the key features of advertising and marketing is to discover how these modifications affect consumers’s wants and needs and to broaden organisational strategies and plans to be able to make sure that the library meets those demanding situations (Dransfield and Needham, 1995). It is therefore now not surprising that public librarians are becoming a member of the marketing bandwagon. This article explores the advertising activities within the operations of the Sierra Leone Public Library offerings.
Public Libraries
A Public Library is funded wholly and partially from public funds and the usage of which isn’t always constrained to any elegance persons in the network however freely to be had to all. It is a primary company of enlightenment for adults, presenting for kids the recorded reports of others that allows you to help them grow into adults.
Usherhood (1981) defined Public Library as an enterprise set up, supported and funded with the aid of the network, both through nearby, regional or country wide government or via some shape of or different network enterprise. It presents access to expertise, information and works of imagination via a variety of resources and services and equally to be had to participants of the public network no matter race, nationality, economic and employment repute and academic attainment.
The Sierra Leone Library Board (SLLB)
The Sierra Leone Library Board (SLLB) changed into mounted by using Ordinance in June, 1959. The putting in place of the Board turned into envisaged inside the Government’s White Paper on Educational Development in 1958 and its functions mentioned therein as follows:
• To provide a country wide/public library Service;
• To aid and make stronger programmes of grownup and fundamental schooling;
• To offer powerful services for youngsters and teenagers which includes requisite offerings to colleges;
• To offer a lot wished information and references services;
• To offer in which wanted good enough services for special companies, that is girls and ladies, language agencies.
The Central Library is designed to provide public offerings to Freetown and additionally to function as headquarter of the National/Public Library services and to provide lodging for a developing collection of e-book and non-e-book substances inside the u . S .. It does all technical processing of inventory for the Regional and Branch Libraries and has an Adult Lending Reference and a Children’s department.
Libraries are charged with responsibility to provide statistics carrier to guide instructional, activity and personal endeavours of the contributors of their respective communities and the Sierra Leone Library Board is not an exception to that. The following offerings are provided at the Sierra Leone Library Board to Clientele:
Children Services
The Sierra Leone Library Board provides records offerings to children with the aid of the provision of books and other materials for kids which can be frequently housed in a unique segment referred to as the Children’s Library. A unique service for kids referred to as baby oriented educational programme particularly designed for more youthful library users is included inside the children’s library offerings. They also offer offerings to kids via storytelling, drama/play and analyzing aloud.
Book Borrowing and Lending Service
The fundamental challenge of Sierra Leone Library Board is to offer the general public with get admission to to books and periodicals. The Sierra Leone Library Board usually offers get right of entry to to an expansion of books that are to be had for borrowing by means of everybody with the suitable library card.
Current Awareness Service
At the Sierra Leone Library Board, cutting-edge awareness service is aimed at bringing to the notice of ability users, newly to be had documents and statistics offerings. This is done by means of collating information and generating new secondary sources, circulating present day periodicals or other files received and producing and distributing one or extra varieties of announcements.