Libraries and the Digital World

The article found here by Kathryn Zickuhr includes a slide show of the findings of 3 years of study into American's relationship with public libraries.

I find it fascinating! Among the many revealing tidbits in the slide show summary are slides like this one showing the results of their e-reading vs. print book reading habits is especially heartening to me:

The reason I find it heartening is that 76% of American adults (18+) read a book in the past year - 3 out of every 4 adults reads! The troubling part to me though is where public libraries fit into that number. If our usage statistics are any indication, 3 out of 4 Hutchinson residents might be reading, but far less than 3 out of 4 of those are borrowing those books rather than buying them. If this is due to the rise of e-reading, the answer is kinda simple - library ebook platforms are, well, not to put too fine a point on it, "awkward" to use. I'm not going to say anything rude, like "they suck", although that might be a fair assessment; nor am I going to say something paranoid like publishers are intentionally trying to squeeze libraries out of existence to theoretically "maximize" profits.

No, instead, I'm going to say that libraries need to do better in the ebook arena. I'll take the liberty of putting that on our collectively broad public library shoulders and say that we just need to find another way. There are ideas out there - JukePop is one that provides an interesting example of what people are trying to create looking at libraries as partners instead of competitors. JukePop seeks to provide libraries with a ready and easily accessible source of independently published ebooks while helping the authors of those ebooks get editorial, publishing and promotional support.

There are many other initiatives that seek similar outcomes. The thing is that people are still reading, public libraries need to reach out to them and show them, with easy-to-use tools in hand, that we can help.

Further in the article and slideshow listed above is this slide:

Public libraries clearly act, even in this "modern" digital age, as a great leveler. In every single category listed, lower income Americans value public libraries for their services. We must continue to provide the cost-effective, obviously much wanted and needed services, but in the best ways we can, not just the same ways we always have.