Library Research Service

A recent Pew survey shows that 40% of U.S. adults trust information from a local public library or librarians “a lot.” Thirty-eight percent of respondents said they trust libraries/librarians “some.” Totaling the percentage of respondents who trust a resource “a lot” or “some,” 83% trust health care providers, 82% trust family or friends, and 78% trust libraries/librarians. Libraries have the largest percentage of the strongest feelings of trust. The survey divided participants into five groups based on their attitudes about information and learning, summarized below.  “Interest” refers to how many different topics respondents expressed interest in.  Groups with high interest expressed...

Library Jobline, LRS’s website for library job postings and resources, posted a record number of jobs in 2016 and saw a continued increase in the number of people using the website to post and search for jobs. Data collected from the Library Jobline website are highlighted in the most recent Fast Facts report. In 2016, 673 library jobs were posted to Library Jobline, with May being the busiest month for job postings (73 posts). More than two-thirds (69%) of jobs posted were located in Colorado, and over half (53%) were full-time positions. A majority of jobs posted were in public libraries...

As libraries increasingly focus on digital information resources, librarians are left wondering what the interior of the library will look like in the future if most of their materials can be found online rather than on bookshelves. The Utrecht University Library (UUL) attempted to answer this question in a recent study undertaken to predict what the role of library bookshelves will be by 2025. Librarians at UUL looked at their acquisition data to determine the changing ratio of paper and digital books and journals in the library’s collection. They found that since 2014, 90% of UUL’s acquisitions budget was spent on...

The American Libraries Association (ALA) recently published a report exploring the ways that rural public libraries meet the needs of their communities, especially by providing digital literacy training and free access to the internet. This report used data collected by the Public Libraries Survey and the Digital Inclusion Survey. Rural libraries tend to fall into a role of internet provider for rural communities since affordable, high-capacity home broadband internet can be difficult to obtain outside of more populous areas. More than 4 in 5 (85%) rural libraries surveyed reported subscribing to internet download speeds of at least 1.5 Megabits per second...

A recent study conducted by Freedman Consulting found that Americans across the political spectrum support net neutrality. The study also found a bipartisan belief that access to the internet is essential and that the government should play a role in expanding internet access. About three-quarters (77%) of the survey respondents indicated that they believe the Federal Communication Commission’s existing Open Internet rules should be kept in place. Unlike many political issues, this issue received support from all major political parties – three-quarters of both Republicans (73%) and Independents (76%), and 4 in 5 Democrats (80%) noted their support for net neutrality...

In a new analysis of data collected in a 2016 survey, Pew Research Center found that Millennials were the most likely generation to say they used their public library in the past year, either through the library’s physical premises or online. The analysis also reveals other demographic trends in library use. Over half (53%) of the Millennials (those ages 18 to 35) surveyed report that they have used a public library or bookmobile within the previous year. This is compared to about 2 in 5 of both Gen Xers (those ages 36-51; 45%) and Baby Boomers (those ages 52-70; 43%) and...