Founded in 2012, One Book 4 Colorado (OB4CO) is a statewide annual initiative that offers free copies of the same book to every 4-year-old in Colorado. In 2014, the book was Grumpy Bird by Jeremy Tankard. More than 75,000 books were given away at more than 500 sites, including public libraries, Reach Out and Read […]
The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) just released its Public Libraries in the United States Report for Fiscal Year 2012, which is based on a survey of 97% of public libraries across the United States and parses out national and state-by-state trends. We contribute data to this survey about Colorado’s public libraries through […]
In today’s diverse information culture, libraries play an important role in promoting the many ways that communities stay informed about the world around them. As digital technologies and media become more and more ingrained in everyday life, Americans are increasingly recognizing their value as an educational and creative outlet. Results out from a new Pew […]
There are often debates in the library world about whether or not the younger generation is reading enough, and how much television, computers, and e-devices actually compete for their attention. Scholastic’s Fall 2014 study examines this question, among others, by actually asking kids themselves about reading habits and preferences. The results, culled from a nationally […]
Libraries have fully embraced social media as a way of reaching and engaging with patrons in new ways. But social media is no different than any other technology: Trends and usage ebbs and flows as new groups discover existing tools and new tools become popular. One resource for navigating the changing social media landscape is […]
Last month, we reported on Library Journal’s and School Library Journal’s survey of public and school libraries, which indicated that e-book acquisition continues to rise steadily in both settings. However, demand for e-books was found to be lackluster in public libraries and downright disappointing in school libraries. Nielsen recently conducted a study that sheds some […]
Wishing all of our fellow library data lovers a wonderful holiday season and a happy 2015! We will be taking a couple weeks off from the Weekly Number and will return on January 7. In the meantime, we encourage you to check out (or revisit–for long time readers of our blog) this heartwarming post about […]
Librarians have long been advocates for the privacy rights of ordinary citizens, whether they are protecting citizens from the government, corporations, or even libraries themselves. While it is not news that Americans are increasingly concerned about the status of their personal information, the extent to which they are concerned about their privacy across various media […]
New research results from the Lilead Project showcase the first national effort to study school district library supervisors since the 1960s. Funded by IMLS and deployed by the University of Maryland College of Information Studies, the Lilead Project collected data via a national survey (which they intend to repeat) for a baseline for future research […]
As part of our look at e-book usage in U.S. libraries for 2014, we see in School Library Journal’s latest survey of school libraries that e-books are not faring quite as well in this environment as they are in public libraries. In fact, in the survey of 835 U.S. school libraries, one of the most […]
