Public libraries

More Americans than ever are card-carrying library users

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U.S. libraries continued to experience a dramatic increase in library card registration in 2008. According to a Harris Poll from Harris Interactive, released Sept. 22, 2008, during Library Card Sign-up Month, 68 percent of American adults have a library card, an increase of 5 percent since 2006.

Survey results indicate that this is the largest number of Americans with library cards since 1990, when the ALA started to measure library card use.

In-person visits increased 10 percent compared with a 2006 ALA household survey. Seventy-six percent of Americans visited their local public library in the year preceding the survey, compared with 65.7 percent two years ago. Online visits to libraries increased even more substantially: 41 percent of library card holders visited their library websites in the year before the poll, compared with 23.6 percent in 2006. This finding complements the ALA’s 2008 Public Library Funding & Technology Access Study, which found that public libraries have significantly increased the Internet services available to their communities, including online homework help, downloadable audio and video, and e-books.

Libraries provide programs and services for people of all ages, but the poll finds that certain groups are more likely than others to have a library card—women more than men (73 percent versus 62 percent), and Midwesterners (72 percent) and Westerners (71 percent) more than Easterners (65 percent) and Southerners (63 percent).

The poll also found that 39 percent of card-holders visit the library to borrow books; 12 percent to take out CDs, videos, or computer software; 10 percent to use a computer to view library holdings; 9 percent to use reference materials; and 8 percent to gain Internet access.

Almost all the survey respondents (92 percent) said they view their local library as an important education resource. Seven of 10 agreed that their local library is a pillar of the community (72 percent), a community center (71 percent), a family destination (70 percent), and a cultural center (69 percent). Based on everything they either know or might have heard or read, three of five respondents (59 percent) were extremely or very satisfied with their public library. The satisfaction rate was even higher among those who have a library card.

The Harris Poll is a non-commissioned survey that was conducted online within the United States Aug. 11-17, 2008, among 2,710 adults (ages 18 and over). Full text is available on the HarrisInteractive website.

“The public library is an essential community resource”

The trends reflected in the Harris Poll are even more positive in the context of remarkable data concerning library use gathered a year earlier by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).

The Public Libraries Survey report for fiscal 2006 includes information on population of service areas, service outlets, library collections and services, library staff, and operating revenue and xpenditures. More than 9,000 libraries in the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the Virgin Islands took part in the survey.

Among the report’s key findings:

•  2.1 billion transactions were made between public libraries and their users in FY 2006; this total includes books, other printed materials and audio/visual resources. This translates to an average of 7.3 transactions for every individual living in a library service area. (97 percent of Americans live in a library service area.)
• 1.4 billion visits to public libraries were made in

FY 2006, or almost five visits for every individual who resides in a library service area.

• Children are among the heaviest users of public-library resources. Children’s materials accounted for 35 percent of all circulation transactions in FY 2006, and attendance at library-based children’s programs was 57.8 million.
• Public libraries had 807.2 million print materials, 42.6 million audio materials, and 43.9 million video materials in their collections in FY 2006.
• Public libraries play an important role in providing Internet access to communities. Nationwide, there were 334 million uses of public-use Internet terminals in FY 2006.

“The report shows the tremendous value that our public libraries have in the United States,” said Anne-Imelda M. Radice, IMLS director. “The public library is an essential community resource particularly in difficult economic times. This survey provides solid data that helps to inform policy and practice decisions at the community, state, and national levels.”

This was the first Public Libraries Survey report released since the IMLS assumed responsibility for the survey from the National Center for Education Statistics. The survey’s extraordinary response rate—97.5 percent—resulted from the cooperative effort among the Chief Officers of State Library Agencies, the IMLS, and the Census Bureau, which collected the data under contract with the IMLS. A PDF version of the report and data files and documentation are available on line.

Smaller libraries top larger ones in per capita usage

Smaller libraries—those with service populations of fewer than 10,000—more than held their own in terms of usage, according to a report last year from the Public Library Data Service (PLDS), a project of the Public Library Association.

In 2007, PLDS libraries served 89,469,248 registered patrons, 50.2 percent of a total legal service area population of 178,256,883 in the United States and Canada, according to the Public Library Data Service Statistical Report 2008. PLDS libraries also circulated items 1,388,250,736 times (n=868 libraries; 1.6 million circulations per library reporting), performed 195,939,114 reference transactions (n=814 libraries; 240,711 transactions per library reporting), and provided programs to 45,043,847 patrons (n=846 libraries; 53,243 program participants per library reporting).

The number of library visits per capita was largest (about 8.14) for the group of libraries with service populations of less than 10,000 and lowest (3.95) for the libraries with service populations of 1,000,000 and more. Circulation per capita followed a similar pattern; so did registrations per capita, though the differences here were less marked. Holdings per capita were almost five times as high for libraries with populations of less than 5,000 as for those with populations of more than a million (9.84 vs. 2.04), and in-library use of materials per capita in the smallest category of libraries ranged from 2.22 to 4.86 times as much as in other categories.

The PLDS received responses from 872 of the 1,641 libraries that were invited to participate in the survey, a response rate of 53.1 percent. The libraries ranged in size from serving 884 to serving more than four million people in their legal service areas; most (403, or 46.2 percent) were in the 50,000-249,000 range.

               PLDS 2008 library output characteristics per $1,000 of expenditures

Income and expenditure measures followed a different pattern. Libraries that serve 25,000-49,999 people and those that serve fewer than 5,000 had the highest income per capita ($80.79 and $74.42, respectively) and the highest expenditures per capita ($50.50 and $53.28, respectively). Variations were less dramatic in the per-capita expenditures category (the low was $31.76 for libraries serving a million or more people) than in the per-capita income category, where the low was $33.66 for libraries serving a million or more people.

Expenditures are expected to yield results, and the Public Library Data Service 2008 report looked at various library “outputs” in this light. Compared with 2007 data, reference transactions decreased, library registrations increased, and other values remained statistically the same.

The Public Library Data Service Statistical Report 2008 is available at the ALA Store.

A book is a book is a . . .

Even the definition of “book” continued to expand. A September 2008 survey conducted by the Audio Publishers Association revealed that 28 percent of adult respondents had listened to an audiobook in the past year and that audiobook sales had increased 12 percent from 2006. Almost all (92 percent) of audiobook users reported that they had read a printed book in the past year, and a third of them said they had read 16 or more books, according to the survey. The majority (88 percent) of audiobook listeners are college-educated.

And where do audiobook fans go to decide what to listen to? The library comes in first in this category (43 percent), followed by retail bookstores (27 percent).

Increased library use does not mean increased funding

The economic recession that began in early 2008 may have been a factor in the public’s increased use of libraries, and the flip side of that coin was not so shiny.

In June 2008, the ALA Office for Library Advocacy (OLA) reported that, despite some positive trends, much of the information it had gathered on library funding continued to reflect cuts affecting operating hours, staffing, collection and materials acquisition, programming, services, and facility expansion/enhancement.

The OLA noted that the data in its report were aggregated from published sources and therefore presented only a partial view of the overall funding crisis currently faced by libraries.

Among other instances, the OLA report cited:

• Bridgeport, Connecticut, where the City Council’s budget committee in May unanimously reinstated $900,000 in funding to the Bridgeport Public Library. The budget submitted by Mayor Bill Finch had called for $1.1 million in cuts and the elimination of 25 staff positions.
• Modesto, California, where the Stanislaus County Library issued layoff notices to 94 of its 138 part-time staff on May 1, the result of a projected $1 million shortfall due to a slowing economy and a $291,000 drop in state funding tied to local contributions.
• Loudon, New Hampshire, where the public library cut hours and staff in March following a town meeting vote that slashed its budget by $58,000, or 30 percent.
• Elsewhere: The Fitchburg (Mass.) library budget was cut 68%, to $360,000, which produced service cuts leading to state decertification. . . . The Anne Arundel County (Md.) Public Library lost $1.15 million of its $20 million budget. . . . Baldwin Public Library, in suburban Detroit, took a $900,000 hit on its budget of $4.7 million. . . . The Washoe County Library System, Reno, Nevada, had $1.96 million cut from a budget of from $13 million.

Still, the Jersey City Free (N.J.) Public Library received $222,000 from fundraisers and sponsors to acquire a custom-built bookmobile accessible to people with disabilities and put into service in May 2008.

The 2008 PLDS survey included a special section on financial practices of public libraries, detailing various sources and types of library finances. The most common forms of alternative library financing were overdue fines, individual or group monetary contributions, revenues from printing services, contributions from friends organizations, and interest on investment income; but the largest monetary contributions came from local library foundations. The largest government source of income was state library aid and grants.

As 2008 drew to a close, the effects of the sinking national economy on library budgets became more apparent. A number of cities and states responded to drastic decreases in tax collections by proposing midyear budget corrections that would have ripple effects on libraries. Still, libraries responding to a budget survey by Library Journal in late October projected a 2 percent increase in budgets for 2009, about half of what had been projected for 2008—but still on the daylight side of zero.

The libraries responding to the survey projected an increase of less than 1 percent in funds for materials, and respondents in some size categories were anticipating a decline in materials budgets. Overall, staffing expenditures, energy costs, and the increasing demand for services were the chief areas for financial concern.

Public-library budget outlook for 2009*

State budgets — and library funding — are hardest hit

At the state-funding level, the outlook was downright gloomy.

Forty percent of the states reported declining state funding for public libraries in fiscal 2009, and 20 percent of these states figure more cuts were on the way, according to a survey of the chief officers of state and territorial library agencies conducted in December 2008.

The Southeast has been the hardest hit in this regard, with cuts of 30 percent in South Carolina and 23 percent in Florida in fiscal 2009 compared with fiscal ’08. Per capita state aid to libraries in South Carolina has fallen back to 2003 levels while inflation has averaged between 2.5 and 3.4 percent annually.

Alabama saw a 9 percent reduction for fiscal 2009, and Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi saw cuts of 8, 7, and 5 percent, respectively.

Hawaii, where state funding provides 86.7 percent of overall library funding, reported a 7 percent decline in state funding for fiscal 2009 and anticipates more reductions. Ohio, where the state provides 62.1 percent of overall funding, also braced for cuts as state revenues plummeted. Nationally, state funding makes up about 9 percent of overall public library funding. Budget questions were one part of a survey of members of the Chief Officers of State Library Agencies (COSLA) conducted by the ALA; the response rate to these questions was 96 percent.

The local outlook was often no better. Philadelphia and San Diego announced they would need to shut some libraries because of budget shortfalls, Meg Massey reported Dec. 21, 2008, in Parade magazine. She quoted Philadelphia Mayor Michael A. Nutter: “I know how important libraries are, but unfortunately we have to close a $108 million deficit this fiscal year, and serious changes need to be made to our budget.” Nutter said he must close 11 of 54 branches, but in January a federal judge put the closings on hold.

Circulation, however, moved in the opposite direction: up. Checkouts of books, CDs, and DVDs are up 15 percent at the main library in Modesto, Calif., Boston Globe columnist Derrick Z. Jackson wrote on Jan. 3. In Boulder, Colo., circulation of job-hunting materials is up 14 percent. Usage of the Newark (N.J.) Public Library is up 17 percent. Library card requests have increased 27 percent in the last half of 2008 in San Francisco. The Boise (Idaho) Public Library reported a 61 percent increase in new library cards in 2008. In Brantley County, Georgia, library computer usage was up 26 percent in the last quarter.

The Boston Public Library is no different, Jackson wrote. “New library cards are up 32.7 percent from July to November of 2008, compared with the same period in 2007. Visits are up 13 percent, from 1.4 million visits to 1.6 million. Checkouts of books, CDs, and DVDs are up 7.2 percent overall over the last fiscal year.”

And yet . . .

Finally, the recurring question: Is money spent on libraries money well spent? Add Wisconsin to the long list of those who answer, “Yes!” A study commissioned by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction and conducted by NorthStar Economics Inc. found that “Wisconsin public libraries contribute to the Wisconsin economy and are of growing importance to the citizens of the state. . . . The return on investment in library services is $4.06 for each dollar of taxpayer investment.” The results of this study, published May 1, 2008, echo conclusions drawn from studies done in Indiana, Ohio, Florida and several other states—see “Public libraries are a good investment,” in the ALA’s State of America’s Libraries 2007.