Libraries, the very word brings images of books, magazines, date due slips and a woman in glasses with her hair in a bun, shushing people to mind. More recently, the image has included computers, DVDs, iPads, digital cameras, and anything else you can imagine. Libraries have long been in the business of enlightening, enriching, and educating people about the world around them (both real and imaginary worlds) no matter if it’s a school, public or academic library. But some libraries, such as school and academic, have an easier time reaching their populations due to knowing who their patrons are; students. Public libraries don’t have as easy as a time knowing who their patrons are and knowing who is in the community around them in order to do outreach. That’s where Geographic Information Systems (GIS) comes into play. Public libraries can find almost the same information as academic and school libraries (if not more) by using GIS to examine the community around the library. This study will examine the area surrounding Asheboro Public Library in Asheboro, North Carolina and offer insight into the community around the library so that the library can tailor their programs and services to meet the needs of the community around them.

What can GIS do for your library?

Why is it important for libraries to know the demographics of their surrounding area? While libraries are a free service that is available for all to use, according to a 2013 by Pew Research, 54% of Americans used a public library in some form in the last year (Zickuhr, Rainie, Purcell, & Duggan, 2013). This included physically visiting the library or using the public library website to get information. In other parts of the world, such as the public libraries in Slovenia, 48% of the population visited their libraries in the year 2013, which was the fourth highest in the European Union (Vodeb & Vodeb, 2015). While this number seems lower than the American average, keep in mind that their number doesn’t involve the use of the library homepage, but is only the percentage of the population that made a physical visit to the library within the year of 2013. Even though these numbers seem decent, as librarians, we should always strive to reach more people in the community. This is where GIS and census data comes into play. Libraries can use this information and programs such as SimplyMap to look at the community around the library to cater their services and collections to the people living in the area.

A simple look at census data for the area can tell a lot about a community. Knowing the number of unemployed people in your community could influence programs on applying for jobs, resume workshops, and perhaps workshops on increasing people’s skill sets (such as computer classes). Looking at the age of the population around the library can tell the library what types of books the library should add to the collection. If children only accounted for 10% of the total population in the surrounding community, money would be more wisely spent on adult books and resources. Looking at the language spoken at home can influence whom the library hires and how they tailor outreach (Bishop & Mandel, 2010). If people speak Spanish at home at a high rate, it makes sense to have bilingual programs, outreach material, and staff to assist with this portion of the community instead of just having a straight English-speaking environment. GIS information can also be used to determine where libraries should be opened and where they should be closed (Vodeb & Vodeb, 2015; Bishop & Mandel, 2010). Another study used GIS information to determine if the community around them was low-income. Jacksonville, Florida, for example, set up a program called the Ride to Read program. This program provides free bus rides to the library for children if they hold a library card (Hertel & Sprague, 2007). Knowing

about the community is paramount in determining whether a library is successful or not. As Hertel & Sprague points out, budgets are getting tighter and tighter and libraries have to make decisions about what services they can offer, so libraries have to choose the programs and services that give them the most bang for their buck so to speak (Hertel & Sprague, 2007).

Asheboro is the main town in Randolph County. It has a population of 25,195 on the 2010 census and was projected to be around 25,886 in 2014 (State & County QuickFacts-- Asheboro (city), North Carolina, 2015). Despite this large population, the city only has one library to serve the population. For this study, SimplyMap was used to look at the city in order to get a better understanding for its population in order to tailor its services to its community. Internet access, percentage of the population the speaks Spanish and other languages, genres of books purchased according to consumer reports, age of the population and income were all variables that were selected to examine closer for this community.

Internet Access

American Libraries recently had an interesting article about New York Public Library, Kansas City Library, and Chicago Public lending mobile hotspots in their libraries to bridge the digital divide in their communities. There were several funding programs that these libraries applied for and received in order to make these personal hotspots available to patrons. Like all things, this funding would only benefit the initial start-up of the program and the libraries will have to continue to upkeep this project on their own (unless they get more funding). This includes replacing devices, maintain contracts with the Internet companies, and addressing any technological issues associated with the program (Inklebarger, 2015). Suppose Asheboro wanted to get involved in this program but needed to see if it was worth the cost of upkeep. Budgets are constantly shrinking and they would need to know if this was something that the community desperately needed. The variable the library could potentially look at is the percentage of households that accessed Internet at school or the library. As you can see from the chart below, a library or school is used for Internet access in approximately 11.5-12.5% of homes around the library. Depending on what the library guidelines are for service this figure would give insight as to whether this program is worth looking into or deciding against implementing the program all together. While 12.5% is a high number of people to be relying on the library/schools for Internet, this may be an instance where instead of spending the money on hotspots, they may just need to add more computers to their library.

Language

Another crucial aspect of the community that libraries cannot ignore under any circumstances is the language spoken at home. Spanish is a dominant language spoken in Asheboro so it’s something that needs to be taken into consideration when buying books for the collection or hiring people in the library. Looking at the language spoken at home in the Asheboro area, one can quickly see there are two dominant languages spoken at home: Spanish with 19.85% of the population and English with 71.41%. English accounts for almost 3/4s of the entire population but the library cannot ignore the 19.85% of the population that is Spanish speaking. This is a huge percentage compared to the rest of the county (8.92%), state (6.93%) and the United States

as a whole (12.22%). These percentages drive home the fact that Asheboro Public Library needs to pay attention to the percentage of Spanish-speaking homes and implement Spanish services in the library.

Looking at the area around the library, one can see the concentration of the populations that speak Spanish. Within a few feet of the library, 18% and above of the population speaks Spanish. This provides justification for the library to hire bilingual staff, provide bilingual programs such as story time for kids, job workshops, computer classes, possibly English as a Second Language Classes, and most importantly purchase Spanish language materials for both the physical and online collections.

Books purchased

SimplyMap also has variables that aren’t census data, such as consumer reports. These reports can come in handy for libraries when they are developing their collections. There is a section that

gives the percentage of the genre of books bought by consumers in the area. A quick look at Asheboro’s buying habits when it comes to books reveals that they like to read novels, followed by mysteries, children’s books, cookbooks and so on. Libraries can use this information to determine how to spend their collection budget for the year. If most people in the community are buying novels, children’s books, mysteries, and cookbooks, the library might want to consider buying more in these areas than say desk dictionaries.

Education

The community’s education level plays a huge role in any library. Libraries can utilize this information to determine what types of programs to put on for the community. This can also offer a glimpse into people’s homes as far as income is concerned. Looking at Asheboro’s educational attainment percentages can be kind of disheartening. A large number of people, 29% of the community, have less than a high school degree. That number is almost double the United

State average of 13.49%. Looking at this astounding data, the library could use these numbers to create a partnership with the local community college to offer GED help or even a GED program at the library. Perhaps the library could also reach out and establish homework help and tutoring

at school programs and help keep students in school who are dropping out because they are struggling in their classes and getting frustrated. The library can reach out to the local schools to determine what the students are studying and the greatest area of help for students and develop programs to help reinforce services that the schools are already provided but in a neutral environment where students might not feel the pressure to succeed as much.

Another factoring when reading the above chart is to look at the age of the population. It wasn’t uncommon for older generations to drop out before completing high school to work in the manufacturing industry. Asheboro is and was home to many manufacturing companies, so the educational attainment number doesn’t necessarily mean that those people need a GED if they are already retired. When looking at any information, it’s important to take into consideration all aspects of the community instead of just looking at one number and making determinations on that single number. As can be seen from the chart below, most of the population is between 45 and 54 years old, followed closely by 55-64 and 35-44 and then 25-34 age groups. The library can target the 18 and older age groups for GED programs and other educational outreach to better serve the community.

Income

Income level in the community around the library can say a lot about how people are living. Looking at the map below one can see a lot of people are living in poverty just a few yards from the library itself. Knowing that the community around you is living on these types of incomes, it’s important to market the libraries free services to this area that these people can use. These

people may not know what the library offers, so sending out a flyer to this area with all the free services and perhaps creating some programs that the library could offer these people could prompt these people to use the services. The library could put on programs on how to stretch income, they can bring people in that can discuss the food stamp program, free services that the health department offers, and perhaps get the health department to come into the library to offer free flu vaccinations since the library is closer to this group of people than the health department.

One service that Asheboro lacks that it possibly needs after viewing the above map is public transportation services. There is no bussing services in Asheboro so if someone needs a ride somewhere that doesn’t have a car, they have to get someone else to take them or walk. This further discourages someone who lacks the income to make the effort to take their child to the health department to get crucial healthcare services. If the library showed the community around them that they care about their physical health, mental health and overall well-being in addition to their reading and educational needs then a lot more people might utilize their services.

Conclusion

Just looking at a few variables in SimplyMap and using GIS in the library can provide holistic look at the community that Asheboro Public Library serves. By understand the community and recognizing the needs that they have that are outside the traditional library services, the library can address these needs and present their services to the people at the same time. Looking at the above data, Asheboro can implement GRE services, information on health care services, and have programs on how to stretch an income and understand government assistance programs. The library can also hire more Spanish speaking employees and integrate Spanish in their collections and programs. They can also look at where people are using Internet to justify adding more computers to the library to meet the needs of the community or to apply for hotspot grants. The library might not have known to implement these services and would continue to implement that same programs they already have and not reach this important area of the population.

One flaw that this report might have is that the area across from the library is mostly businesses. It’s not know where this impacts the number or if those businesses is even considered when creating this map. It’s assumed that businesses aren’t included in the census data so it should not impact the results but it can be a possibility.

Bibliography

Bishop, B. W., & Mandel, L. H. (2010). Utilizing geographic information systems (GIS) in library research. Library Hi Tech , 28 (4), 536-547.

Hertel, K., & Sprague, N. (2007). GIS and census datat: tools for library planning. Library Hi Tech , 25 (2), 246-259.

Inklebarger, T. (2015). Bridging the Tech Gap. American Libraries: the Magazine of the American Library Association , 46 (9/10), 16-17.

State & County QuickFacts-- Asheboro (city), North Carolina. (2015, September 3). Retrieved September 18, 2015, from United States Census Bureau: http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/37/3702080.html

Vodeb, V., & Vodeb, G. (2015). Spatial analysis of the public library network in Slovenia . Journal of Library Administration , 55, 202-220.

Zickuhr, K., Rainie, L., Purcell, K., & Duggan, M. (2013, December 11). How Americans Value Public Libraries in Their Communities. Retrieved September 18, 2015, from Pew Internet & American Life Project: http://libraries.pewinternet.org/2013/12/11/libraries-in-communities/