Public Library Use/Internet Access and Digital Holdings in Libraries in 2016
Updates for ALA Library Fact Sheet 6 and ALA Library Fact Sheet 26
Start with the press release dated December 17, 2015, New report looks to future of libraries building digitally inclusive communities, which explains After Access: Libraries and Digital Empowerment, and view the findings compiled at The E’s of Libraries®.
Also see the October 28, 2015 entry on Sue Polanka’s No Shelf Required blog, 94% of public libraries offer ebooks says the 2015 LJ/SLJ report; this LJ/SLJ 2015 Ebook Usage Reports: Public Libraries is available for download.
See the 2016 State of America’s Libraries: A Report from the American Library Association, released during National Library Week 2016 — especially School Libraries — Digital learning.
In 2016, Pew Internet Libraries released Libraries and Learning dated April 7, 2016. Pew’s Lee Rainie presented How Libraries Fit into Community Education Ecosystems dated January 8, 2016 for the 2016 ALA Midwinter Meeting and presented How the public grades libraries — and uses libraries dated June 27, 2016 for the 2016 ALA Annual Conference. Also see Social Media and the Workplace dated June 22, 2016.
The report Libraries 2016 came out of the Pew Research Center on September 9, 2016, in which Pew’s John B. Horrigan found that “trends in visiting public libraries have steadied, and many Americans have high expectations for what their local libraries should offer”. Perhaps not accidentally, Horrigan authored a report released shortly thereafter, on September 20, 2016, on Digital Readiness Gaps, stating that “Americans fall along a spectrum of preparedness when it comes to using tech tools to pursue learning online, and many are not eager or ready to take the plunge”.
The latest in the Public Libraries Survey (PLS) series of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) is Public Libraries in the United States Survey: Fiscal Year 2014 (August 2016) reported 1.4 billion in-person visits to libraries. There were 101.9 million attendees to public library programs. At programs for the named age groups, there were 70.1 million attendees at children’s programs and 6.7 million attendees at young adult/teen programming. The number of registered borrowers/library card holders was 171,763,000. The number of public-access Internet computers was 285,395.
Findings of Public Libraries in the United States Survey: Fiscal Year 2013 (March 2016) appeared in the March 16, 2016 press release, 2013 Public Libraries Survey Shows Libraries Responding to Changing 21st Century Needs. The Supplementary Tables provide other library usage statistics, as noted in my April 8, 2016 post, Public Libraries in the United States Survey: FY 2013:
Historical background on public libraries and ebooks can be found at ALA Office for Information Technology Policy (OITP) director Alan S. Inouye’s columns at Digital Book World and ALA’s Libraries Transform E-books & Digital Content.
