Following up on my own wish for statistics on the health of libraries from an earlier post, I am trying to find good statistical evidence on the current relevance of public libraries.
First, I am limiting my search to public libraries, as they are my area of concern. As a graduate student in English, I have my love of academic libraries, too, but I choose to focus on the public libraries both because I work in one and I feel that these are the libraries that will be most affected by the social change in information sharing.
Distressingly, I can see that this is going to be a slow undertaking. The library system in which I work owns very few books on the subject (including one from 1996, which is too old to contain the information I seek). Traveling to the nearest academic library won't help, as I have checked the online catalog there and nothing very recent or relevant popped up.
Surprisingly, I am finding very little in the way of statistical information via a quick search on the internet, either. Not surprisingly, the majority of returns from my quick internet search were opinion pieces.
I can see I will have to widen the net. No problem, I love a good challenge. However, I am a parent, I work full-time, and I am preparing to re-enter the university in the fall to finish my graduate degree, in addition to taking online classes this summer. So, I am going to get to the bottom of this, though it will be a slow, graudal descent :)
P.S. - I greatly appreciate any suggestions, too.
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