In improver to request people about their full general feelings about libraries and their patterns of patronage, Pew Internet's survey explored in depth what people practice at libraries – both at the physical facilities and on library websites. These responses reported below were asked of the 53% of Americans who say they visited a library or bookmobile in the past 12 months.

Activities at libraries

Here is a rundown of the things people do at libraries among those who have visited a library or bookmobile in the past 12 months:

Browse the shelves for books or media

Most 3-quarters (73%) of library patrons in the past 12 months say they visit to browse the shelves for books or media. Women patrons are more likely than men to say they do this, as are parents of minor children, and people with at least some college feel.

Many of our focus group members mentioned how they enjoyed browsing the shelves at their local public library. Ane liked the process of discovery—"The cover can describe y'all in." Even when they had reserved materials online, several liked to browse for books, movies, or music.

Borrow print books

Well-nigh 2-thirds (73%) of library patrons in the past 12 months also say they visit to borrow print books. Women are more likely than men to practise this, every bit are parents of modest children and those with at least some college experience.

Our focus group members mentioned borrowing books more than than whatsoever other activity. Several said they had recently started to borrow books more than recently due to changes in economical circumstances, or when they retired. Others said that they began to borrow books more as their tastes in books inverse, or when they simply ran out of space:

"As I got older, I bought more books and nosotros moved a lot. Equally an developed, I moved a lot with our profession and I carted probably a roomful of books . . . Finally, I said 'enough' and we started going back to the library because nosotros're like this is—I don't demand to own all this anymore. So, now it's more than of 'Let'south see if they have it at the library first before we buy it' [mentality]."

Research topics that involvement them

Some 54% of those who visited a library in the past 12 months say they visit to inquiry topics that interest them.

Get aid from a librarian

About one-half (l%) of those who have visited the library in the past year say they visit to get help from a librarian. African-Americans are more likely than whites to say they visit to get help from a librarian, equally are those ages 50 and older and those who live in households earning less than $50,000. In addition, some non-technology users are more than likely to say they get aid from librarians: That is true of those who do not ain tablet computers, those who do not own e-book readers, and those who do not own smartphones.

Sit down, read, and report, or watch or listen to media

Some 49% of those who visited a library in the past 12 months say they visit just to sit, read, and study, or watch or listen to media. African-American and Latino patrons are more than likely to say they do this than whites. Those ages 18-29 are especially likely to cite this as a reason for their library visit in the past 12 months, as are urban residents and those living in households earning less than $fifty,000.

Utilise a research database

About 46% of those who visited a library in the by 12 months say they visit to employ a inquiry database.

Attend or bring a younger person to a form, programme, or effect designed for children or teens

Some 41% of library patrons in the by 12 months say they visit to attend or bring a younger person to a form, program, or event designed for children or teens. Parents of minors are especially likely to cite this equally a reason, as are women, African-Americans, those ages xxx-49, and people with at least some college experience.

Borrow a DVD or videotape of a movie or Idiot box show

About 40% of those who visited a library in the by 12 months say they visit to ­infringe a DVD or videotape of a movie or TV show. Parents of minors and those ages 30-64 are more than likely than others to study this utilise of libraries. This service was mentioned past many of our focus grouping participants:

"We don't have Netflix. A lot of people have Netflix subscriptions or whatever where they tin can see things right away, and with all the picture show places like Blockbuster and Hollywood, those are gone . . . So I similar the library because nosotros can go go movies that we may want to sentry, only we don't want to own."

Read or check out printed magazines or newspapers

About three in ten (31%) of library patrons in the past 12 months say they visit to read or check out printed magazines or newspapers. A focus group fellow member said they cease by the library well-nigh once a calendar week to read magazines: "It'due south a wonderful style to spend some time if I've got it."

Nourish a coming together of a grouping

Some 23% of library patrons in the past 12 months say they visit to attend a coming together of a group to which they belong. Several focus group members who were involved in local groups said they appreciated this service, and some said their experiences using meeting spaces made the library seem more welcoming. Librarians in our online focus group also emphasized the library's role as a community meeting infinite, especially in smaller communities that lacked other areas for groups to run into.

Attend a course, program, or lecture for adults

About 1 in v (21%) of those who visited a library in the past 12 months say they visit to attend a class, plan, or lecture for adults. Women are more likely than men to report using the library for this purpose.

Borrow or download an sound book

Nigh 17% of those who visited a library in the by 12 months say they visit to borrow or download an audio book.

Borrow a music CD

Some 16% of those who visited a library in the past 12 months say they visit to borrow a music CD. Urban and suburban residents are more than likely to cite this as a reason for their library visits than are rural residents.

How often people receive assistance from library staff

Asked how oftentimes they get help from library staff in such things as answering research questions, 31% of library patrons in the past 12 months say they frequently get help, 39% say they sometimes get help, 23% say they hardly ever go aid, and 7% say they never go help. There are variances in those answers past race and by course, as the charts below show. Minorities are more than likely than whites to say they frequently or sometimes get help, and members of poorer households are more likely than members of richer households to say they get help.

Finally, those who own e-book readers and smartphones are more than probable than others to say they hardly ever or never get help from librarians.

Asked how helpful library staffers are in full general, 81% of those who had visited a library in the past 12 months say librarians are "very helpful," 17% say "somewhat helpful," one% say "non too helpful" and some other 1% say "not at all helpful." At that place are no notable demographic differences in respondents' answers to this question.

In our focus groups, many people reported having only positive impressions of libraries and librarians, especially if they had positive experiences growing up. I focus group member said:

"When I was younger, there was one librarian in detail, she remembered my name and every time I would come in with my mom I would take out stacks and stacks of books . . . I started getting really into reading more because of her and she would [compliment] me virtually how much I was reading, and it was like a challenge to me. How much can I read? How much tin I read in this week and so I can come back the next week and get more books. So for me, it was a very positive environment as a child."

However, some participants, including some who mentioned that their libraries take experienced cutbacks recently, said that library staff were very busy, and weren't able to give them the individual attention they remembered and valued from their childhood. 1 participant said that it seemed like at that place were so many programs going on, the librarians could seem also busy to simply help people detect books. At the same time, impressions and library experiences frequently varied in different areas even within the same city.

A few focus grouping members said that they frequently feel intimidated when visiting some library branches. These focus groups members said they weren't very familiar with the Dewey Decimal system, which made it difficult to find what they were looking for even if they were told the call number or pointed in the full general direction; some said that library staff members they interacted with would go "frustrated" with them for non understanding such a basic concept:

"I alive by our library, shut by, walking altitude. I got intimated by trying to find the books. It was similar they say 'it'south number-number-number and alphabetic character,' like 100-EB or whatever it is. I'd be similar, 'What?' [Laughter] . . . Now I accept more fun [reserving books] online and waiting for information technology to show upwards and enjoying that. Only when I went past myself . . . information technology was too [complicated]."

Utilise of library websites

In all, the Pew Internet Project survey finds that 39% of Americans ages 16 and older accept gone to a library website at one time or another and, of them, 64% visited a library site in the previous 12 months. That translates into 25% of all Americans ages 16+ who visited a library website in the by yr.

Those who are most probable to take visited library websites are parents of minors, women, those with college educations, those under age l, and people living in households earning $75,000 or more.

The 25% of Americans ages xvi and older who went to a library website in the past 12 months tended to do and then with modest frequency:

  • 3% of them went every day or nigh every twenty-four hours
  • 9% went at least one time a week
  • xv% went several times a month
  • 27% went at least once a month
  • 46% went less often than that

When they were on the sites, users sampled a wide variety of library services and at that place tended to be little variance by different demographic categories. Of those 25% of Americans who went to a library website in the past 12 months:

  • 82% of them searched the library catalog for books (including audiobooks and due east-books), CDs, and DVDs.
  • 72% got basic library data such as the hours of performance, location of branches, or directions.
  • 62% reserved books (including audiobooks and e-books), CDs, and DVDs.
  • 51% renewed a book, DVD, or CD. Those ages thirty-49 and parents of minor children are especially likely to have done this.
  • 51% used an online database. Those ages xviii-29 are especially likely to have done this.
  • 48% looked for information nigh library programs or events. Those ages 50-64 are especially likely to do this.
  • 44% got enquiry or homework help.
  • 30% read volume reviews or got book recommendations.
  • thirty% checked whether they owed fines or paid the fines online. Those ages 30-49 are particularly likely to have done this.
  • 27% signed up for library programs and events.
  • 22% borrowed or downloaded an east-book.
  • vi% reserved a meeting room.

Several focus group members said that they wished their libraries promoted their website more. One said, "Even when I receive the emails, they never reference the website. I didn't even know they had a website . . . If you want people to utilize information technology, you have to know about it."

In general, focus group members said that their libraries' websites are useful for finding basic information (hours, location), but a bit of a hassle to navigate for more complicated purposes. Some said that even finding and reserving books could be overly complicated, and others said that the interfaces seemed outdated. There wasn't much sense that participants wanted their libraries' websites to be a "community portal" in their own right—if they were using electronic mail or Facebook, they wanted their libraries to be using those methods of advice, just few seemed to recall of their library's website as a place to go for more general information in the showtime place. Ane focus participant said:

"I wait up like complimentary kids' events and there's this website … that sometimes has similar costless access for kids—or if it'southward seasonal I'll literally blazon in 'costless pumpkin patches for kids' [in a search engine] so I tin take them to a pumpkin patch or something similar that. But I wouldn't have even idea to [search for] 'library costless consequence for kids'. I wouldn't have even thought that the library would be a resource at all."

Changes in library utilise in contempo years

The rise of the cyberspace – particularly broadband connections – and the spread of mobile connectivity could potentially impact people'due south use of their libraries. The Pew Net survey asked contempo library users nearly their utilize of libraries over the last five years. Contempo library users are those who those who visited a public library in person in the past 12 months, or those who have gone on a public library website in the past 12 months, or those who have used a cell telephone, due east-reader or tablet to visit a public library website or access public library resource in the past 12 months. They amount to 59% of those who are ages 16 and older in the full general population.

The results showed there is fluidity in library patronage patterns:

  • 26% of recent library users say their own use of local libraries has increased in the past five years.
  • 22% say their use has decreased.
  • 52% say their utilise has stayed the same during that fourth dimension period.

There are some demographic patterns to patronage changes: When it comes to those who have increased their apply of libraries parents of minors are more probable than non-parents to say their library utilize has increased (xxx% vs. 23%), those with at least some higher experience are more probable than those with high schoolhouse diplomas to say their utilise has gone upwardly (29% vs. 19%), and suburban residents (28%) are more than likely than rural residents (twenty%) to report increased library utilise.

Those who say their library use has declined in the past 5 years are more than probable to exist non-parents (25%) than parents (17%) and those who are in the 18-29 age bracket (32%), compared to others who are younger or older. Rural residents (61%) and those ages 65 and older (60%) are particularly likely to say their library use has non changed in the past five years.

The post-obit table shows the reasons people gave when we asked why their library use had increased or decreased:

Many of these reasons were echoed by both the members of our in-person focus groups, many of whom mentioned some common patterns they've noticed in their own library use. Many patrons discussed how they had used the library frequently as children, only and then visited public libraries less often in middle and high school. Their library utilize would pick up once more for academic reasons in college, but not for pleasure reading. Many people said they "rediscovered" the library when they became parents, and once more when they retired. They besides cited changing habits equally private circumstances changed, such equally the loss of a job or income (chore searches, learning new skills).

A few focus grouping likewise said that discovering a new library service, such as e-volume borrowing, would rekindle their interest in the library—and lead to an increase in employ of other services. Some but wished for more programs for single adults. One said that it seemed like all the programs at their library were "either for the senior citizens or for the really immature children, similar puppet shows [and] magic shows. In that location's no really in between for those teenagers, young adults, adults."

Another thread in our focus group discussions was library hours. Several said that budget cutbacks had led their local libraries to scale dorsum their hours, to the point that it was difficult to find fourth dimension to finish by—especially when libraries didn't accept hours in the evenings or on weekends. "It's not open much at all," 1 said. "I hateful a few hours a day and you can't practise a whole lot in that small corporeality of time." Others said that their library'southward schedule inverse and then oftentimes that they had trouble remembering when information technology would be open—and eventually stopped going at all.

Technology users and library utilise

Equally we noted earlier in this report, technology owners are somewhat more fastened to their libraries than non-users. Internet users, tablet users, and smartphone users are more likely to have ever gone to libraries and more likely to have library cards. Even so, they are no more likely than non-owners to have visited a library or bookmobile in the past 12 months.

Asked to assess their library utilize over the past five years, recent library users who are home net users, tablet users and smartphone owners are somewhat more likely than non-users to say their use has declined. And they are especially likely to say that the reason for their diminished utilize stems from the fact they can do research online.