According to the results of a new nationwide poll of 2,710 U.S. adults surveyed online between August 11 and 17, 2008 by Harris Interactive, 68% of Americans currently own a library card.
Sorry but I am not buying it. There is no way I will believe there are 200 million active library cards in the USA today.
I believe the poll used deficient methodology. To begin with, how can you have a credible poll representative of the entire population if you did it online? The whole thing sounds like shoddy work.
I would like to see factual information confirming or denying that claim. (Obviously if the claim is credibly confirmed I will be very surprised.)
Are you questioning this poll only or polls in general? Most polls are suspect for a number of reasons, and the online source will eliminate those without access to a computer, so it’s biased right there.
But does this figure sound unreasonable to you? If so, why? A library card is free or cheap and we are a literate nation. I find it easy to believe that two-thirds of the population have acquired one sometime in their life (the poll doesn’t say they are actively being used, does it?).
What other cite are you looking for besides this poll? Because I guarantee you, if this is the poll the ALA is promoting, there’s nothing else out there.
Sure, you could call up every library system in the country and find out how many active cards they all have, but there are thousands of systems out there and that information is meant to be internal unless the system wants to promote the number of cards they’ve issued.
I want to see whatever information is available in support or contradiction of the cited assertion. Criticism of the methodology of this poll would be a first step. How reliable is this poll? Any experts on this matter have any opinion?
Then other factual information from other sources. It should not be difficult to find data about the number of cards and the populations of specific districts.
Another thing to remember is that most library cards don’t have expiration dates. An “adult American” could have gotten a library card at the age of 7, moved all over the country and still have the library card.
If the poll had asked how many Americans have used a public library in the last 12 months, obviously the results would be different.
Well, here are some hard numbers, taken from last year’s annual report of the local (Wichita) public library:
Active patrons: 144,086
City population: 357,698
That works out to about 40.3 percent. They define active patrons as “those who possessed a valid library card, as defined by expiration date, anytime in 2007.” Now, there is no expiration date on a library card. It is something that apparently is tracked by their computer (and probably explains why they occasionally ask a patron to confirm his address and phone number - the card is being “renewed”; in twenty or thirty years I’ve never overtly renewed my card). I suspect that a patron showing up with an “expired” card would automatically have it renewed when he checked out something. So in addition to the 40.3% who are current, there is an additional group of people who think they have a current card, but by the library’s reckoning, don’t. Impossible to tell how many folks are in this group. (And they presumably would tell Harris that they do have a library card; they just don’t know that it has “expired”.)
Side note: they registered 17,025 new patrons last year - 4.8% of the population.
At any rate, here’s one set of real-world numbers.
(As I think about it further, there are doubtless some residents who are school or university students with school library cards but not public library cards. So, everything considered, I would have little trouble arguing that half of the local population has [or thinks it has] a valid library card. I wouldn’t go much beyond that. Your fair city will vary)
It’s the sort of statistic that sounds fishy because of its simplicity. I have a feeling they’re including every student in the country - who all, by definition, have “library cards” in the sense that they have a card that allows them to check books out of a library. Sure, it’s a student card, but…
And do people in families all have different cards? There’s three people in my household but we only have one card. There’s no need for another card. Do we count as one, or three?
I could believe that 68% of Americans own a library card, technically. Now, if you asked how many knew where their library card was, you’d get a smaller number. And a smaller number than that will have used the library recently.
I, on the other hand, have my library card number memorized, just from typing it into the online card catalog so many times.
As to taking the survey online, I don’t think that necessarily invalidates the results. The reasonableness of the results depends on how well they compensated for it being an online survey. I don’t know enough about surveying to analyse that. All I can do is decide whether the number feels right. And given that a lot of families feel that the right thing to do is to haul the kids down and get each one a library card, yeah, 68% doesn’t sound bad - for just owning a card.
I have to disagree. I worked in a children’s library for years. Many parents of young children prefer to have one family library card. Easier to keep track of all the little picture books.
At my library, if there has been no activity on a card for three years, the record is deleted from the patron database. When we had a major power outage a few months ago we were mobbed with people needing computer access who thought they had an active card and didn’t. Luckily it only takes a few minutes to get one.
Regarding the OP, 68% sounds a little high to me and the methodology seems suspect.
I agree. The fact that they’re usually nonexpiring and so many people get them automatically, even if they’re never or rarely used, makes me doubt the 68% figure, or at least wonder at its relevance.
Our son had a library card from age 8, but several times we didn’t realize books of his were overdue, so now he just uses ours (he’s 12 now).
My wife once actually maxed out her library card! She was checking out a lot of books for a research project and they finally told her she couldn’t take out any more (I think 100 was that library’s limit). So of course she had me check out several dozen more books on my card…
It’s quite common for people to come into a library and tell me they have a library card, but when I look them up, the card is expired. (Or they lost it 2 years ago, etc.) People don’t think of library cards as having expiration dates; once they sign up, they figure it’s for life.
All of the responses seem to be relating to the conclusions, but it seems like the OP is asking about the way in which the poll was conducted. As the report you linked to shows, their methodology accounted for the fact that their respondents had a propensity to be online. They also weighted the demographic results. This is a fairly straight forward polling technique.
The ALA has been conducting similar surveys since 1990, with different polling companies, and the 68% figure is fairly consistent… 63% in 2006, 62% in 2002… you can find other reports at their web site.
I live in Chicago (which has a great library system) and I constantly see little kids signing up for cards.
The public schools have reading lists for the kids at the library. So I am assuming most of the parents are going to sign their kids up for a card rather than buy the book. I guess they could check it out on their card but since you’re at the library why not sign the kid up. It’s free in Chicago. Library cards in Chicago do expire. They are good for two years
One interesting thing from those studies is that a larger percentage than I would expect physically visits the library each year: 64% in 2002, 65% in 2006. Given that, the number of people with library cards doesn’t seem out of line. I think we just assume that “no one goes to the library anymore” which isn’t the case.
Yeah, I also was “wtf?” when that 68% figure came up (it’s interesting to note the demographic with the highest rate is the 18-30 bracket). But from examining the methodology, it looks like they’re weighting to try to avoid any bias.
So do they expire two years after the last usage? As long as you’re using it fairly regularly, they never expire? Or do you have to sign up all over again at the end of a two-year period, no matter how much you use yours?