03/06 Readings

"Service Trends in U.S. Public Libraries, 1997-2007"

“Service Trends in U.S. Public Libraries, 1997-2007,” discussed a survey comparing user behavior between urban and rural libraries. The article related some surprising results, one of which was that circulation records showed decreased circulation to a greater extent in rural libraries than in urban ones over time. If few people in urban areas own computers or other electronic information devices, and fewer still have home internet access, one would think that more and more people in rural areas would frequent their public libraries in order to use computers. Increased traffic would cause circulation to go up as more people came to the library, or at the very least remain the same.

“Changes in Rural Libraries and Librarianship: A Comparative Survey”

Robert Flatley’s and Andrea Wyman’s “Changes in Rural Libraries and Librarianship: A Comparative Survey” summarized the results of a 2007 survey designed to gauge rural librarians’ attitudes toward their jobs and communities. Although the survey in the first article implied decreased usage of rural public libraries through numbers in circulation records, Flately’s and Wyman’s survey revealed that most rural librarians felt optimistic about their places in their communities and that public libraries were becoming increasingly important in rural areas. Even though the two surveys overlap (both cover 2007), they seem to contradict each other in terms of rural libraries’ survivability.

I did have a few issues with Flatley’s and Wyman’s survey methods. First, I think they limited their survey too much by only surveying libraries serving populations of 2500 or less. The fact that there is not much literature on libraries this size indicates that perhaps there are not many libraries that small to begin with. Flatley and Wyman could have garnered more results and more accurate information by widening their survey base. Second, after discovering that many rural libraries within their parameters did not have websites or even email addresses, why didn’t Flatley and Wyman conduct a paper survey instead of a web-based one? By not using a paper survey, they limited their potential results even more. Perhaps Flatley’s and Wyman’s skewed survey base partially accounts for the seeming contradiction between their survey results and the survey results discussed in “Service Trends.”

“Cooperation in Rural and Remote Libraries: The Promise of Technology”

Leanne Clendening’s “Cooperation in Rural and Remote Libraries: The Promise of Technology” proposed the idea of rural libraries creating networks among themselves and with bigger libraries in order to share technological resources. While this is common sense, the reality of most rural public libraries as represented by Flatley’s and Wyman’s survey makes such partnerships difficult to realize. If a good number of small libraries don’t even have an email address, I don’t see how they can enter into partnerships with other libraries in order to share technological resources. In addition, if communities can’t give their libraries enough funding to have internet access (funding being another issue many rural librarians complained about in Flatley’s and Wyman’s survey), such libraries have no hope of ever being able to partner with other libraries, and will probably cease to exist.