HCLS has aligned the vocabulary it uses to that of educational institutions. It is difficult to determine whether this change would be welcomed on a more universal level by our public.
Would people from all age groups feel more compelled to use public libraries if they perceive themselves as students when they walk through our doors? For some, an educational term may seem less inviting, especially if their reasons for library use are more recreational or personal in nature. While aligning libraries with education can help our funders better understand why our services are essential, it may serve to alienate some members of the public that we serve.
Perhaps there is room for a new term, like member? It indicates that someone is making an active choice. It implies an organization in which you can participate. In addition, it does not require use of physical space or physical materials in order for it to be an accurate description. Lankes and Molaro both agree that people who use the library are more comfortable with this more welcoming term and it is a better description of who public libraries serve.
Lankes suggests libraries are more than public spaces, they are civic spaces. He credits library consultant Joan Frye Williams with quizzing people who use libraries with what they prefer to be called, coming up with the term member. While the term did not arise from a grand scientific study, it has a grassroots quality that has the potential to catch on.
Molaro agrees with the possibilities the use of member presents. Many people proudly join organizations as card-carrying members. They flash their cards, and take pride in their membership.
Community support and engagement are essential to healthy, thriving public libraries. The term member would help to further this effort. The debate on what to call the people who use our libraries has gone on for more than a decade without a clear consensus. Books are for use. Every reader his [or her] book. Every book its reader.
Save the time of the reader. The library is a growing organism. It is time to embrace our identities as public libraries.
Learn how your comment data is processed. Previous Next. A good range of books People are avid for information and they know that in most cases books are the best source of high-quality knowledge. Lewisham library E-book reader.
Recent posts. About the Author: Petra Paraschiv. Petra is a library advocate at Princh and writer on the Princh Blog. Princh, which is a printing solution designed specifically for and with public libraries, makes a consistent effort to provide advocacy for libraries and library professionals.
The Princh blog discusses library specific topics that inform their readers of library trends, insights, technologies and more. Restarting the cycle that started with storytime, parenthood brings the user back into the library. We found that when kids age out of storytime, engagement can dip back again unless the parent makes a personal connection the library.
This connection could be a librarian or to one of the activities that the library facilitates, like a book club. As a result, some libraries are actively trying to create that connection.
Since many parents may not have time to pick out their own books, Wake County Public Libraries has a pilot program that tries to lend parents a hand. This program provides a busy parent with their own personalized bag of books that are ready to pick up at the end of storytime and are even pre-checked out. By anticipating the needs of new parents, the library can build connections that parents may maintain as their children grow up. Although it is definitely not as happy as child rearing, job loss was another jumpstarter we saw.
Not only do libraries provide computer and internet access, but they often have resume or job resource workshops as well as online databases with career advice. Aside from the actual resources a library offers its patrons, sometimes the most utilized is the physical library itself.
Job searching can be an isolating and lonely experience and while coffee shops can be a place to turn to, they generally require purchases of coffee, which can add up. Hello, public library! Retirement is another time we see high engagement at the library. Now with more free time, seniors can take advantage of more of the resources the library provides.
One participant takes classes through a lifelong learning university and uses the library to help her with her coursework.
We also saw that many seniors use the library for help with technology. Humans are social creatures—so it makes sense that we discover the majority of information that we see as relevant to us through social channels.
This includes social media, primarily Facebook, but for our participants it was just as likely to include email, text, and in-person interaction. Twitter vs. Facebook: At one library we spoke to, the Marketing Librarian and Web Services Librarian work together to analyze data of all kinds, including social media interactions.
For the library, this means word of mouth can be an essential form of marketing. Because of this connection, she is a strong advocate for her public library and is in a position to encourage others to engage more deeply as well.
For younger participants below 35 , Google was the primary discovery tool for almost every kind of information. We heard a lot about what might be considered more traditional news sources over the course of this study, like radio often NPR and newspapers both physical and digital. Interestingly, these news sources were not necessarily more popular with any one age group; participants from all age groups reported finding them valuable.
Libraries differ from many other public buildings in that one goes there not because they must but because they want to. When citizens go to various other public buildings to register a car, pay property taxes, vote or attend a public meeting, the activities conducted in those buildings are highly regulated.
In contrast, people in libraries are free to read books, magazines and newspapers, conduct research on just about any topic, check their personal email and search the Web-as they see fit. Because the activities are so varied, library patrons must be given a fair amount of latitude to allow them to decide how best to utilize library resources; it's not as easy as setting up chairs and calling a meeting to order at a set time.
While flexibility is essential if libraries are to be useful to the diverse population that they serve, some patrons will likely engage in behavior that creates headaches for the staff and infringes on the ability of other patrons to use the library.
What follows is a brief discussion of the steps libraries, through policies adopted by the library trustees and enforced by the librarian, may take to ensure that the library is a welcoming place for all citizens, where the actions of one individual do not unduly interfere with use of the library by others. Who is in charge of what goes on at the library? The library trustees, as the governing board of the public library, have "the entire custody and management of the public library.
The library trustees "adopt by-laws, rules and regulations for its own transaction of business and for the government of the library.
The library trustees appoint a librarian who serves as the administrative officer of the public library. Thus, the library trustees adopt the rules and regulations for the library, and the librarian administers them.
What is meant by "problem patrons"? Problem patrons are those visitors to the library who behave in such a way as to unreasonably interfere with the use of the library by others or who interfere with the work of the library staff.
In our society, we must all put up with a certain amount of inconvenience from our fellow citizens. However, here we are referring to those patrons whose behavior seriously impacts the ability of other library patrons to enjoy and use the library. Examples include the angry patron who is shouting because she is upset at the overdue book fine she must pay; the table of boisterous, giggling teenagers; and unattended children running through the stacks.
Increasingly, some patrons are seen as a problem not because of any inappropriate behaviors, as previously described, but by their very presence in the library. For example, the homeless who use the library as a safe and warm place to spend the day, its public restrooms to bathe in and couches and floors to sleep on, with all of their possessions piled next to them.
0コメント