Submitted: The Two Sides Team January 25, 2013

A new study from the Pew Internet and American Life Project looks at the future of libraries. The study, titled “Library services in the digital age,” doesn’t include anything particularly shocking or revelatory, but it suggests that many people still value the role of libraries, and that librarians are thinking about how their services can evolve.
January 21 2013

by Anthony Ha, via Tech Crunch

A new study from the Pew Internet and American Life Project looks at the future of libraries. The study, titled “Library services
in the digital age,” doesn’t include anything particularly shocking or
revelatory, but it suggests that many people still value the role of
libraries, and that librarians are thinking about how their services can
evolve.

Pew found that in the past 12 months, 53 percent of Americans who are
16 or older visited a library or bookmobile, 25 percent visited a
library website, and 13 percent visited a library website using a
smartphone or tablet. Of those “recent library users,” 26 percent said
their usage has gone up in the past five years; the most commonly given
reasons were the enjoyment of taking children and grandchildren; the
need to do research and use reference materials; and plain old borrowing
books more. Meanwhile, 22 percent said their usage had gone down, and
the biggest reason by far was the Internet.

The study also mentions a bunch of additional tech-related services
that libraries could provide, including an online research service for
asking questions of librarians (37 percent of respondents said they’re
“very likely” to use this); app-based access to library materials and
programs (28 percent); GPS-style apps for navigating libraries (34
percent); Redbox-style lending machines (33 percent); and Amazon-style
recommendations for books/audios/videos (29 percent).

At the same time, there was a lot of support for traditional library
services. For example, of the people who have visited libraries in the
past 12 months, 73 percent said they did so to borrow print books. And
when asked if libraries should move some of their printed books and
stacks away from public locations to make room for tech centers, reading
rooms, and cultural events, 20 percent said definitely, 39 percent said
maybe, and 36 percent said definitely not.

The study also includes a number of ideas from librarians about what
else they could offer. It sounds like there’s plenty of interest around
mobile apps, “makerspaces”/workshops, and RFID-tracking of books, though
there’s some resistance too, as well as concern about funding. Here’s
one of the more interesting responses:

“We recently began circulating Rokus with HuluPlus,
Netflix and Amazon Prime loaded onto them. As far as I know we are the
first library in the world to do this. This type of out-of-the-box
technologies are making a huge difference to the demographics we are
reaching. I would like to further those types of technological
innovations and push the envelope on the public’s perception of what
libraries offer. These types of initiatives do cost money and staff time
to develop the program—but if it is important enough, the money can be
found.”

The survey was conducted from October 15 through November 10, through
landline and cellphone interviews conducted with 2,252 people. You can read the full study here.

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