Increasing use of Public Libraries Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Increasing use of Public Libraries - Essay Example Because of this reason, the role of private libraries in providing information to the public has been limited under the increased power of private institutions and organizations that could provide to the public advanced facilities in terms of research. Through the years, the leaders of public libraries managed to improve the facilities and the resources available to the public, a fact that led to the decrease of distance between the public libraries and the libraries of private institutions. The recent financial crisis favored the increase in use of public libraries, a trend that has been reported in a series of surveys conducted across USA. The current performance of public libraries is presented in this paper; reference is made to the empirical studies developed in the particular field. It is proved that the increase in the use of public libraries is continuous and the prospects for future growth are significant. 2. Public Libraries use – trends and challenges In order to ev aluate the level of use of public libraries it would be necessary to refer to relevant data, as published by governmental and non-governmental organizations. Emphasis will be given on the trends of use of public libraries in USA; however, figures related to the use of public libraries in other countries, for example, Canada and UK, are also presented in this study aiming to verify the findings regarding the use of public libraries across USA. One of the most common sources for evaluating the level of use of public libraries is the Public Library Data Service survey, which is developed annually; the above survey shows the annual changes in the use of public libraries in USA. Also, through the findings of the specific survey the factors that support the use of public libraries are revealed. The most recent survey of such kind, in terms of the availability of its findings is the one developed in 2009 – where data from 852 libraries are presented. The survey is based on ‘da ta provided by public libraries in USA and Canada’ (Varvel 2010). The findings of such surveys (referring to the years from 2003 up to 2009) are presented and analyzed in the study of Varvel (2010) where emphasis is given on the following issues: a) the number of visits of libraries that serve a small population, i.e. under 5,000 people, has been increased at 2.7 times, while the libraries serving from 5,000 to 49,999 people has achieved an increase in the number of their visitors at a level of 1.75 times; libraries serving large populations had the lowest performance – in terms of the increase of the number of their visitors (Varvel 2010). This means that for the period 2003 up to 2009, the libraries serving small populations had the highest rate of performance – regarding the increase of the number of their visitors; b) libraries serving less than 5,000 people also managed to reach the highest level of in-library use of material; again, the libraries serving h igh population presented the lowest percentage of in-library use of material (Varvel 2010); c) in 2009, the percentage of public libraries using a website has been reduced reaching the 92.43% - compared to the 98.17% of 2008; it is expected that the decrease of the number of libraries using website will affect their performance since most people prefer to access the libraries online and retrieve the information required. On the other