Midterm Review: Public Library Use in New York City

What were the primary findings of the study? (Big picture rather than specific stats for this)

1. “Public libraries in disadvantaged neighborhoods tend to use library resources on site more so than off site.” p. 461
2. “this research found that the national trend of a typical public library user being white, middle class, and well-educated does not give a complete picture of public library use.” p. 460
3. “The analyses in this research confirm the importance of the traditional factors such as neighborhood characteristics in terms of race, income, and education and the spatial accessibility of the branch location.” p. 460
4. “Relationship between circulation and neighborhood characteristics is nonlinear…For example a high percentage of Hispanics and a high percentage of households with less than a $10,000 annual income in a disadvantaged neighborhood have an exponential negative impact on the circulation per capita of the library branch.” p. 461

What did the researchers discover about circulation statistics? What main recommendations did the researchers make?

“These (correlations between the circulation per capita and the racial, economic, and educational variables) simple bivariate correlation analyses are not the best way of examining the causal effects of these variables on circulation per capita." p. 456
“Public library use was higher in a neighborhood with better spatial accessibility, stronger social connections in the form of nonprofit organizations, and more racial diversity and integration.” p. 459

Recommendations:

1. “Disadvantaged neighborhoods can improve the use of their library branches by targeting residents with high school diplomas.” p. 460
2. “The branches in disadvantaged neighborhoods should be maintained to reflect the neighborhood characteristics both in appearance and in library materials.” p. 460
3. “Library branches in disadvantaged neighborhoods should get higher budgets than are proportional to their circulation figures.” p. 461
4. “Public library systems should seek to standardize and account for in-library use of resources.” p. 461
5. "For the long term, a beneficial relationship between public library use and the human, economic, cultural capital in disadvantaged neighborhoods could be established to improve and sustain the use of the library branches." p. 462