IMLS and the University of Washington – Seattle are doing a national study on the social, economic, personal, and professional value of free access to computers at public libraries.
Mike Crandall and Karen Fisher of the University of Washington Information School, working with the Urban Institute, a non-partisan economic and social policy research organization, are examining the impact of free access to computers and the Internet on the well-being of individuals, families, and communities. There’s a new group on WebJunction that you can join track the project, discuss PAC impacts and research in your library, and contribute data, articles, or whatever you have that may be of interest to this group.
I’m personally interested in their findings because, as far as I know, we (as a profession) have not done a good job of aggregating and sharing broadly the overall use of public access computing in libraries (how many people actually use them), nevermind the impacts (what outcomes does it have for them). I have been able to track down data on how many public libraries offer public access (98%), how many workstations those libraries have on average for both geographic and economic indicators, as well as how many internet workstations per capita. However, I don’t know of any national data that looks at how many public library PAC users there are over time (portion of US population, for example). If anyone does know of national data on this, I’d be grateful if you could point me to it.
As PAC has become a core library service, we’re filled up to the brim with stories about how it’s changing patron’s lives in our community. There is value there. But I’m happy to see us striving for more detail or substance behind these great stories. If we can get there, I think we’ll be a lot farther along in articulating our value and relevance to those who fund and otherwise support our libraries.
Chrystie – IMLS collects statistics every year from every public library in the US. A recently introduced measure is “Users of Public Internet Computers”. I am not positive but I believe that the data was collected for the first time in 2005. In looking at the documentation for FY2005, it looks like they impute that stat, so not sure how solid it is.
Here is the definition from the IMLS site:
Users of Public Internet Computers
Definition: The total number of individuals that have used the Internet Computers in the library during the last year. If the computer was used for mulitple purposes (Internet access, word-processing, OPAC, etc.) and the Internet users could not be isolated, then all usage was included.
Note: Each user that uses public Internet computers, regardless of the amount of time spent on the computer is counted. A user who uses the library’s public Internet computer three times a year counts as three customers.”
oh cj, you are my hero. thank you!