Who doesn’t use public libraries? And why?
In working with libraries to conduct community consultation we often get asked about the people who don’t use public libraries. Who are they? Why don’t they use the library? And how can we get them to become users?
I am going to think about these questions over two articles. This one deals with the who and why, the next one will look at the so what.
The discussion draws on data we have collected from communities and the excellent Libraries Building Communities (LBC) research produced by State Library of Victoria in 2005 (notably Report 3: Bridging the Gaps written by my former colleague Carol Oxley – http://www2.slv.vic.gov.au/about/information/publications/policies_reports/plu_lbc.html). The LBC research may now be 17 years old but many of the findings still stack up well against what we have found in recent times.
Who uses libraries and who doesn’t?
The LBC research conducted a telephone survey of Victorian residents and found that 60% had visited a public library in the preceding 12 months. The survey excluded children under 16 years of age (who are known to be reasonably high users of libraries with their families) and largely excluded non-English speaking households (who are on balance thought to have below average library use). More recent figures from whole of community surveys suggest that the proportion of the population who use public libraries in any year is around 40-50%. I use 40% as a conservative estimate. I still think this is a pretty persuasive number, and if I’m wrong the true figure is even more impressive. It’s also true that this year’s 40% is different to next year’s 40%, so if we looked at use over a two-year period the estimate would be nudging up over 45%.
The LBC research (both quantitative and qualitative) found that public library use was widespread across all population cohorts and all parts of the state. However, there were some groups that were more likely to be library users and others who had below average use.
When you think about it, none of this is particularly surprising. And it describes the lived experience of many Australian-born people (from middle class backgrounds) who have found themselves being library users at different stages of the life cycle.
Why do some people not use a library?
But we know that people of all ages DO use public libraries, so age can’t be the only factor. And it’s not. Library non-use is more about circumstance or opportunity, factors which tend to have greater effect on people at different times in their life.
The 2005 LBC research found that among the 40% of the population who hadn’t used a public library in the previous 12 months, 27% were non-users for ‘lifestyle factors’ and 13% attributed non-use to a ‘lack of access or awareness’.
Our surveys have found that there are five main factors which contribute to people not using public libraries – and get ready for some massive generalisations.
Recognising that there are significant differences between communities depending on their socio-economic and age profile, and that multiple factors might lead to any individual being a library non-user, our data (averaging across several different surveys) suggests that the distribution of the population looks a bit like this.
That is, if (conservatively) 40% of the population are library users, then the remaining 60% is split between people who have no interest in using a library at this time of their life (21%) or access similar services through their own means (15%), and people who don’t use a library because they lack awareness of the services (9%), lack access to services (9%) or because they don’t feel comfortable in a library (7%).
The numbers change a bit from place to place, but when you get into the specific reasons why someone doesn’t use their library this broad categorisation stands up pretty well. And this knowledge informs what you can do to atttract and engage people who are not yet library users.
Which is what I will talk about in my next article.