Recruiting parents, retaining families

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to share St John Fisher College Library's marketing approach to recruiting and retention of parents within the higher education community.

Design/methodology/approach

The objectives of this paper are achieved by connecting local experiences with other parent initiatives on university campuses throughout the country. The paper takes the approach of addressing marketing strategies for recruitment and retention of parents, while also including opportunities for these strategies to be applied.

Findings

The findings display the library's ability to contribute to their campus recruitment and retention goals while assisting parents in connecting to the library in an informational and emotional capacity.

Originality/value

This paper presents the academic library's perspective on a higher education initiative focused on targeting parents during the recruitment and retention processes. Academic librarians will find the most value in this paper by finding step‐by‐step guidelines for implementing the experiences shared by St John Fisher College's library.

Citation

Little, M. and Price, M. (2013), "Recruiting parents, retaining families", Reference Services Review, Vol. 41 No. 2, pp. 182-191. https://doi.org/10.1108/00907321311326200