Young people and older people use libraries differently – Go figure!
Three times in the last six months I have had conversations with analytically-minded librarians that turned to wondering about library users, and in particular the question of who uses what library services. Do we know anything about if and how different people use libraries? My two-part answer is:
Yes – because you see people of different age gender and ethnic background use your library every day, and you know some are there for the books and others are there for the study space, wifi, etc..
Maybe – because there is data on library use that hasn’t yet been analysed to answer that question.
Some might find the first part of the answer unhelpful, but as a statistician I am a firm believer in the power of local knowledge, because at least 80% of the time what you think (anecdotally) to be true is (actually) true. And the second part of the answer is definitely unhelpful – so let me start to remedy that.
In March 2022 all Victorian public libraries participated in a statewide survey to capture information from customers about the services they used over the course of a year and the value they placed on those services. 18,000 people completed that survey. Two months later, on Tuesday 24 May, Victorian libraries conducted a library census in which people were asked to complete a 2-minute survey as the left the library. 16,000 filled in a census form, and as some completed the form for the more than one person in their group (e.g. parents spoke for their own and their children’s use of the library on Census Day) data was recorded for 26,000 of the 60,000 people who visited a library on that day (44%). The summary results from the survey and census can be found on the Public Libraries Victoria website (https://www.plv.org.au/resources/).
The census form had 10 questions, basically … Who are you? What did you do at the library today? Are you satisfied with the library services? And there are 16,000 responses to those questions. So what if we dug into that data a little more?
Opening up a brand new spreadsheet (Is there a better feeling in the world?) I set up some tables that cross-tabbed WHO did WHAT on Census Day.
WHO (total 140 categories)
Age group (7 categories)
Gender (male/female) [Note: 1.2% of respondents selected ‘Other gender’ or preferred not to answer.]
Library location (5 from Inner city to Rural)
Language spoken at home (English/non-English)
WHAT (8 options, more than one allowed)
Borrow books, DVDs or other items
Access children's books or activities
Attend a library program or event
Read, study or work
Use the computers, internet or wifi
Print, photocopy or scan
Catch up with someone or just pass time
Get information or ask for help from library staff
The results are summarised in the table below. And to highlight what’s going I have done two things. First, any age/gender classification which has a % use figure that varies by more than 20% from the population average is coloured GREEN if it’s 20% above average or RED if it’s 20% less than average. Second, I have re-sorted the eight library activities from the question in the census to group activities undertaken by particular cohorts.
So, what do we find? By far the most common thing people do at the library is to borrow books. No surprise there – on average 53% of people who attended the libraries on Census Day borrowed something. BUT this is NOT true for all library users. Around 70% of females aged 50+ years and 65% of males aged 70+ years borrowed books, but only 25% of females and 20% of males under 25 did this. Older library users are 3 times more likely to visit the library to borrow a book than a younger person.
I have another conclusion (and I say this with enormous respect for statistics), and that’s that sometimes averages aren’t that helpful! Of 112 cells in this table only 28 (25%) come within +/- 20% of the overall averages for each type of library service.
The most glaring example is to look at who accessed children’s books and activities – that is, on average 12% of library users. But we know that’s not what really happens and the data backs it up. Females aged 25 to 49 years (i.e. Mums) are getting books for the kids, and to a much lesser extent males aged 35-49 years. Everyone else – not really.
70% of female library users under 25 come to the library to read, study or work. Younger females are also much more likely (than average) to access wifi and computers (~25%) or hang out at the library alone or with friends (~15%) and much less likely (than average) to borrow books (28%).
Now you still need to be looking at the actual %s, but the clumping of greens and reds shows the very real differences between the way people of different age and gender use libraries. Consider:
Females 12 to 24 years … study, tech and hanging out
Females aged 25 to 49 … children’s books and programs (read this as attendance at Story Time)
Females aged 50+ .. borrowing (almost to the exclusion of all else) and asking librarians for help (maybe in relation to reading, tech use or just having a chat)
Males aged 12 to 24 years … similar to the females but a bit less study and bit more tech time
Males 25 to 34 years … study, tech and print/copy
Males aged 35 to 69 … they’re borrowing, but over-represented in use of computers and wifi
Older males … similar to older females but a bit less borrowing and a bit more reading in the library and time online (newspapers? on the net?).
And there are even more subtle variations when you add in location and language spoken at home (think older men from non-English speaking backgrounds accessing computers in metropolitan libraries).
Looking at this I have two take-aways.
First, none of this is particularly surprising for people who spend time working in or watching what happens in a library. Spend a day there and you will see the young people, the mums and bubs, the older folk and the guys on the computers. And the data confirms exactly what you are seeing. Different age groups use the library in different ways!
Second, interrogate your data. Decisions about library service provision should not be based purely on ‘average’ use because, as shown here, use varies significantly by age and gender. You also need to drill down into the data and understand the demographic profile of the people who use your library.