Marketing Strategies of Tuku Vocational High School’s (TKVS) Library in Taiwan

Abstract

Traditionally, rather than using books in the library, a typical Asian student preferred reading and studying from textbooks in order to pass the college entrance examination. Likewise, this trend was the same in the small suburban town in Taiwan like Tuku with the area is 46 square kilometer, its population of 32,000 people, and 70% of its population is farmers. Due to its agriculture background, there are only two libraries to service its residents. One is the public high school’s library that belongs to Tuku Vocational High School that has approximately about 28 classes and 1000 students while the other is Tuku’s public library. Owing to the textbooks edition from one tomany, the exam content has changed a lot from the past to the present. In order to master the examination, multiple facets of literacy should be mastered. Because of this, library should be gaining popularity than before. In contrary, this was not the case. Library books were seldom checked out according to the electronic tracking system for library books. From three years ago, the average of books checked out was below 15 per day. That average has steady climbing to about 120 with the maximum around 370. Recently, by conducting an open-end questionnaires and chatting with its students, it was found that some marketing strategies are needed to educate them the importance of utilizing the books in the library as the primary source of mastering multi-facets of literacy instead of textbooks.