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62% of Americans Know Their Library has eBooks

7440306200_255f2c180e_hThe Pew Research Center released a new report on Thursday which unfortunately places too much emphasis on what what library patrons know, and not on what they do.

The organization surveyed of more than 2,700 American adults in October 2015 on their local libraries and how they serve the community. The survey found that 76% of respondents said their libraries serve the learning and educational needs of their communities either “very well” (37%) or “pretty well” (39%). Further, 71% of the survey group said libraries serve their own personal needs and the needs of their families “very well” or “pretty well.”

The report also found that 44% of respondents had visited a public library in the past year, down from 52% in November 2012, while at the same time 31% had had used the library’s website (up from 30% in September 2013).

The survey report did not get into how the survey group used the library, though. The questions covered opinions and awareness, not use.

Here’s what the report had to say about ebooks:

Fully 90% of public libraries have e-book lending programs, according to Information Policy and Access Center (IPAC) at the University of Maryland, and 62% of adults say they know that their local libraries have such programs. At the same time, 22% say they do not know whether e-book lending is done by their libraries and another 16% say it is not done by their community libraries.

The survey did not ask how many patrons had checked out an ebook, but according to a Pew survey fonducted in March 2015, around 6% of patrons had done so.

You can find more information on the Pew website.

image by niassembly

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