Over the next few blog posts, we are going to make a bit of a digression from our usual habitation of MuseumWorld and enter one of our other favorite places: LibraryWorld.
Why? For a number of reasons. First off, we often hear museum professional ponder about the links and correlations between museum visitors and library users. We wanted to see what we could find. Second, we thought it might be useful to have some library data to have more clarity on library users and support the work of our museums clients, who may be considering collaborations with libraries. And third, we were just curious. And love libraries.
To find out more about library users, we needed to find some. Since Susie is on the board of her local library’s Friends group, she turned to the library director and pitched the idea. It was embraced with enthusiasm, and five public libraries from southeastern Massachusetts ended up participating in the project.
An online survey was drafted, each library e-mailed it to those users on their e-mail list, and we had nearly 1400 respondents, a nice sample to work with and gain some initial feedback.
There are a few caveats to keep in mind, however:
- Libraries did not e-mail all of their users, as many users only allow e-mail communication for overdue notices, etc. Instead, they e-mailed a smaller group who had given the library permission to e-mail newsletters, announcements, etc. So, like with many of our museum samples, the respondents are likely the “Core Users” and “Library Advocates” for each library, and not necessarily representative of the general public.
- Additionally, four of the five communities represented are generally affluent, well-educated, older, and white, and the fifth community, despite having a sizeable minority population, also skewed white. This affected some of the responses.
- Two additional libraries, one in a large Southern city and another in a small Midwestern city, have since surveyed their users with us. When we compared results, we found that library user segments are relatively consistent regardless of geography. For example, moms in all three geographic areas responded more similarly than not. Just there were generally more moms (and other younger segments) responding to the surveys outside of Massachusetts, and generally more older respondents to the Massachusetts libraries.
We’ll be reporting primarily on the results from the Massachusetts libraries, since their survey was the most comprehensive, but we’ll be keeping in mind any differences from the two other libraries surveyed with us since then, and flag them as needed.
So what were our big questions going into the survey?
- Why do users visit libraries?
- What is the perceived value of libraries to their communities?
- How do childhood library experiences affect adult library visitation?
- Do childhood library experiences affect the needs, motivations, and expectations of users?
- Can research on library users better inform museums . . . and vice versa?
We’ll briefly touch on all of these questions over the next few weeks, especially those that may yield insight for museums.
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