Readings Reactions Week 9

Everett Henderson

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

This article examines the differences between national, urban, and rural library trends using circulation, visitation, and materials statistics.

I felt that some of the conclusions drawn from this study were pretty common sense and unsurprising. By definition metropolitan areas have much larger populations than rural areas. So of course a per capita study is going to show a correlation between the overall trends and the metropolitan trends. It was interesting to see how much rural libraries did differ from their urban counterparts. Rural libraries having more Internet PCs than urban libraries per capita, makes sense when paired with the fact that fewer rural households have home internet access than do urban households.

I was interested in the mention that “use of public libraries and the Internet was comple­mentary” in this article, so I read some of the discussion section of that source, “The Impact of the Internet on Public Library Use: An Analysis of the Current Consumer Market for Library and Inter­net Services” by George D’Elia et al. It talks more in depth about how libraries and the Internet may be complementary right now, but without continued service updates; libraries could find themselves on the losing end of the information battle.

Robert Flatley & Andrea Wyman

Changes in Rural Libraries and Librarianship: A Comparative Survey

This article presented a through survey of how rural librarians perceive themselves and their professions.

As a 23 year old getting ready to enter the library profession, I found comparing the ages of these rural librarians to length of time they had been librarians interesting. The survey said 25% had been librarians for 1-5 years, while only 10% were between the ages of 20 and 39.  I would have thought these age ranges would match up better with the experience range. I suppose that would mean this is a second career for some of the older adults surveyed.

I was glad to see that what librarians like most about their jobs is “interacting with the community and the opportunity to make a difference in people’s lives” and that the majority believed the library plays a vital role in the community, but it was a bit disheartening to see that that percentage had gone down since the first survey (88% to 80%).

Leanne Clendening

Cooperation in Rural and Remote Libraries: The Promise of Technology

This article is a positive example of how technology can help small libraries partner together, as well as with larger libraries.

My favorite quote from this article is “the introduction of technology and the Internet in small rural public libraries positioned them well, as technology would make the size of the library less relevant. But the local community library would still have its place as a centre of the community for learning and reading.” I think this is truly how libraries large and small should consider technology, as a way to increase community, not as competition. While this article is a bit dated, in that there are less and less rural libraries that aren’t connected in someway to other libraries, I think the point still stands that libraries need to utilize technology in new ways to stay effective.