Overall Layout Adjustment of Bookshelves in University Library Using the Service Marketing Concept

Being a window facing readers directly, bookshelves are one of traditional facilities for university libraries to display books, journals, and documents. The layout of the bookshelves determines reader’s optimal routine of borrowing and reading activities, and it thus affects their experience in the library. For university libraries, in order to provide better services, the service marketing integrated theory is applied to the service marketing of libraries. Its core idea is that service marketing should encompass such elements as product, price, place, promotion, people, process, and physical evidence. Taking the example of the library in the Ming Imperial Palace Campus of Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, we adopt a service marketing combination strategy to guide the adjustment of the overall layout of bookshelves in the library. According to the characteristics of librarians’ work in university libraries, we put forward a specific “product strategy”; “price strategy”; and “people, process, and tangible display combination strategy”. By comparing and analyzing the volume of books readers borrow from the library before and after the adjustment of the bookshelves, we found that the improved layout of the bookshelves increases the library’s reading volume and improve the user experience. Guided by the service marketing concept, we can effectively carry out the daily work of university libraries.