This article in today’s Washington Post shows “who uses libraries”. Postgraduate degrees, yes. Republican protestants, less so.
Of course, this is not likely news to librarians.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/10/04/who-uses-libraries/
My very first thought upon reading the article’s introduction was “well duh, people in poorer areas have less access to libraries, and the South is generally poorer and more rural.” Sure enough, the article goes on to explain how geography has a bigger impact on library access (and usage) than ideology.
That article seems to be about “who visits libraries” , not who uses libraries. The only time I actually visit a library is to renew my card - which is once every 5 years for two of my cards and once every 3 years for the third. But I use them every week to borrow or reserve ebooks or to watch movies or read magazines online.
The survey has one or two questions at the end that specifically mention ebooks - but if I see a question about how often have I used the library to borrow books , mixed in with how often have I used the library to use the restrooms, use computers or participate in events after earlier questions asked how often do I visit the library and how often did I visit the library growing up, I’m going to assume the question is asking about how often I use the library to borrow physical books - which is never.
One of our local universities has moved 60% of its onsite library holdings to offsite storage (30-40 miles away). That’s 2 million items! Users can request books/documents, and they will be retrieved and delivered to the campus within 24 hours. This frees up three floors of the six-story main library building. McGill University Collections Centre | Libraries - McGill University
Is this becoming commonplace? I would prefer to see/leaf through any books I was interested in, unless it was a specific book. Or would people be tempted to order a stack of books, and keep only the one or two they are interested in, and send the others back?
Yes, many places.
Local to me, Emory & Georgia Tech have the shared Library Service Center https://libraryservicecenter.org/
Almost all of the GA Tech collections (I believe greater than 90%) is now in there and a lesser portion of the Emory collections.
My workplace doesn’t have offsite collections to that extent, but we can requests items easily from any University system of Georgia School. And I have known people to order a stack, go through them at the circulation desk, and then send the others back.