Library and marketing class collaborate to create next generation learning landscape

Purpose - In order to increase students' awareness and usage of the college library, an undergraduate marketing class collaborated with an academic librarian to create and develop new marketing ideas for the library. This case study aims to detail the results of the class-faculty-librarian collaboration. Design/methodology/approach - Student teams produced marketing plans for the library as their semester project. Findings - Students became strong advocates of the library as they became familiar with its resources, collections, and its overall value to them. Avariety of feasible ideas for promoting the services and resources of the library resulted from student-led research. This study confirms the value shown in previous studies of including students in the development of library marketing plans. It also shows that student learning interest and engagement significantly increases with the opportunity to solve a real-world problem. This insight corroborates user-centered and problem-based learning methods for marketing classes and for identifying and improving students' information literacy skills. Research limitations/implications - The study was limited to one undergraduate college in a major northeastern city in the USA; therefore, the results may be only generalized to similar contexts. Practical implications - In total, nine specific recommendations for practitioners are offered. Originality/value - This case study documents the use of a real-world problem in marketing a library from conceptualization, class study and original proposals, through to implementation of ideas.