Almost six years ago, when you began the grand venture of establishing a library for the City of University Park, you could not have dreamed that it would grow as fast as it has, would become as important to the community as it has proven to be.

Why have we been so successful? We fill a need, or several needs, for our patrons. Libraries have real value, and that is what I want to discuss tonight.

The past ten years have been good ones for public libraries overall. Despite a few communities which have closed their libraries, or drastically cut them back, most public libraries are flourishing. “Far from hurting American libraries,” said Loriene Roy, president-elect of the American Library Association, “the Internet has actually helped to spur more people to use their local libraries because it has increased our hunger for knowledge and information.” Loriene is a faculty member at the School of Library and Information Sciences at University of Texas in Austin and a former Texas Library Association president.

According to data just released last week by the American Library Association, the number of visits to public libraries in the United States increased 61 percent between 1994 and 2004. There were nearly two billion visits to U.S. libraries in fiscal year 2004.

The Urban Institute did a study of public libraries and reported in January 2007, that the role of libraries is changing. It is shifting to “an active economic development agent, addressing such pressing urban issues as literacy, workforce training, small business vitality and community quality of life.” One area, which is drawing the users into libraries, is public access to digital information and technology.

While a library cannot be all things to all people, it can build a community’s economic activity. Public libraries help local governments, agencies, and individuals work together to achieve benefits for each. There are four main areas for this, according to the Urban Institute:

1. Early literacy services are the first step in building an educated workforce.
2. The library’s employment and career resources help prepare many new  technology users to use the available resources.
3. Small business resources and programs are lowering barriers to market  entry. When libraries partner with local and state agencies to provide  business development workshops and research, market entry costs to  prospective and existing small businesses are reduced and new jobs are created.
4. Public library buildings are catalysts for physical development. Libraries are frequented local destinations, attracting tremendous foot traffic, and are seen as contributing to stability, safety and quality of life in neighborhoods, and complementing neighboring retail and cultural  destinations.

We at the University Park Public Library can attest to these facts. We have seen our role changing even in the six short years of our existence, from one of merely a storehouse of books to a provider of computers from which patrons may access a wealth of information. Contrary to the popular belief that every resident of University Park owns a home computer, we have discovered that many do not or that the access to their computers is dial-up and very slow. Some patrons use the library as their only access point to email, research, and other computer uses. More and more business are prohibiting personal email on company computers, so we get many patrons who come in daily just to check their email while they take a break.

We have also noticed that our partnership with Chase Bank has benefited both agencies. We obtain new users from their clientele, and we provide new customers for them from ours. They have also partnered with us in several of our programs, especially the Summer Reading Club, which they have sponsored with us for several years.  Other important partners in the community have been the Scouts, Kiwanis, area PTA’s, and many others.

The days of public libraries being identified as warehouses of books are over, nor are we merchants, like Wal-Mart, Barnes & Noble, and the like. Those retail outlets cannot provide for the many unique demands which patrons make on libraries.

What is it that public library patrons want from their libraries? They want to know things like weather forecasts, where to write elected officials, current information on health-related issues, how to do their own divorce, prepare a will, start a small business, where to find financial aid for their children, recipes for special occasions, and many other subjects. We also supply voter registration forms and information on elections.

Patrons want a safe and welcoming environment, with adequate lighting, a quiet place to sit and study, plentiful computers. We can provide the welcome, but we are still working on the rest of it. Someday, we will have a library large enough to provide all those things.

 Patrons want a well-rounded, current collection of books, periodicals, books on CD, videocassettes, DVD’s, music CD’s, databases, and any other format possible. While we do not have the periodicals, we do provide most of the other items, and they are popular.

“Public library patrons assume a well trained, proficient staff will be available to assist them, and that not one of their questions or requests will be considered unanswerable or unreasonable.” (Pecoraro) We have three M.L.S. degreed librarians to help our patrons. While our front desk workers have limited ability to assist with complicated reference questions, many of our volunteers are also capable of providing knowledgeable guidance.

Patrons want programs that will benefit them and their children, beginning with story times for the very young, who have not yet learned to read. We try to keep them excited about reading and learning and endeavor to entertain and enlighten them as they grow.  The Summer Reading Club is a large part of this process. We will kick off this year’s program on May 26. Nationally, attendance in library programs for children grew 42% in the last decade. Ours has increased even more. Consider our first Summer Reading Club program, which signed up 91 readers. Last summer we had 652 sign up, an increase of over 700 percent.

Public library patrons want the newest technology, the most up to date gadgets, a friendly place to use them, and staff that are aware of trends on the cutting-edge.

And most of all, public library patrons want it all FREE.

The cost savings of borrowing materials from the library rather than buying them and the availability of audio books, videos, and DVDs in the library save patrons a significant amount of money. Our collection improves each year as we strive to update the information and fill in gaps in our subject areas through donations and purchases. It is a never-ending process to weed out old data and order new items. Our volunteers and donors are instrumental in this effort.

Studies indicate that patrons believe libraries provide economic benefits to local businesses and support the prosperity of the community. Participants in a Florida survey noted that public libraries at times were listed as a reason for a business’s decision to relocate to a particular community. Every dollar of public support spent on Florida’s public libraries produced an increase of $9.08 in gross regional product and an increase of $12.66 in total state wages. A similar study of nine public library systems in southwestern Ohio reported an annual economic impact nearly four times the amount invested in their operations. Other data in the report describes how public libraries build a community’s capacity for economic activity and resiliency. Public library directors in the Florida study indicated that the libraries assist businesses with the incorporation process and procedure, as well as with the promotion of local businesses. Our summer reading club prizes certainly promote our local business partners. They provide coupons for the children for reading a certain amount of hours, and the children must go to the stores to redeem them. Our prize partners report they often make additional sales during this process.

Libraries assist patrons through the improvement of computer skills and through introducing patrons to new technologies. Some libraries offer technology education programs such as computer classes. One day, when we have more room and more computers, we may be able to do this too. Other services with economic benefits included free tax help, which we cannot provide at this time, and tax forms which are available on the Internet; financial aid services via the Internet; job and career resources; business resources; and educational support for community members of all ages.

The American Library Association’s Hurricane Katrina Relief Fund has raised more than $500,000 in donations, including ours, which has been distributed to libraries by A.L.A. chapters in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. By August 2006, 62 percent of the libraries in metropolitan New Orleans that were open before Katrina had reopened their doors. And I heard just the other day about another one which has reopened.

Indirect economic impacts that benefit individuals in communities supported by library services are numerous. One example is in the area of career support. Individuals enhance their professional skills and increase the value of their work to their employers. Electronic journals—most often from the library but also from open access sources on the web – are regarded positively and have direct value to readers.

 Libraries are considered as part of the index that describes quality of life. There is recognition among patrons of both high-income and low-income libraries that the library is an asset to the community and a source of community pride. Participants in one survey also observed that public libraries were key factors in community development projects.

Perceptions about the library are influenced every day with every service encounter, every use of a library-sponsored product or library-provided service, every comment by customers, and every visual and written library communication. Establishing and communicating value begins at the grassroots level of marketing, starting with a decision of whom to target.

The predominant perception of libraries is as a place to borrow printed books, even though libraries’ electronic budgets may outpace print budgets. Libraries are perceived as a trustworthy source of valuable information. Our quarterly book sale is a definite marketing tool for UPPL. It not only makes money for books, it gets our name out into the public, provides inexpensive reading, viewing, and listening material for personal use, and brings people into the library who might never otherwise find us. Some of them look the library over, decide to get library cards, and check out additional material. We have established an email list for announcements of upcoming book sales.

Another means we use for promoting our library is through newspaper items. The past couple of years have seen many articles in the local papers about activities in the library, thanks to Diane Galloway and her helpers. We realize that if you don’t let the public know what is going on, they will not come, so we try to keep newspaper readers up to date. We also provide a library newsletter twice a year, once by snail mail and once in the City of University Park newsletter The Arbor, which goes into the water bills. Carol Ann Luby and Terri Speicher are instrumental in pulling them together. It helps our community keep abreast of the latest happenings and new materials. Carol Ann keeps our website information flowing to Judy Binder to update regularly. We often hear that people have learned about something from our website.

Here are some interesting statistics about libraries. Five times more people visit U.S. public libraries each year than attend U.S. professional and college football, basketball, baseball and hockey games combined. U.S. sports attendance: a little less than 204 million in 2002, U.S. public library visits: 1.1 billion in the same year. That increased to 1.8 billion in 2006. If library patrons were to pay the average sporting game ticket price of approximately $35 per visit, libraries would generate a lot of money. Obviously, they don’t pay that.

U.S. public library cardholders outnumber Amazon customers by almost 5 to 1. Amazon had 30 million customers in 2003.  In the previous year, U.S. public libraries had 148 million library cardholders. One out of every six people in the world is a registered library user, a total of 1.1 billion out of a world population of 6.2 billion in 2003. That is all the more surprising when you realize how many areas of the world do not have any public libraries.

In 2003, each day, U.S. libraries circulated nearly 4 times more items than Amazon handled. Amazon shipped an estimated 1.5 million items per day. U.S. Libraries circulated some 5.4 million items per day, about the same number of items as FedEx shipped each day. Libraries checked out more than 2 billion items in 2006.

Overall, circulation at public libraries in the U.S. rose by 28 percent during the decade, partly driven by significant growth in circulation of children’s materials, which grew by 44 percent.

Now our statistics aren’t quite as huge as those. We checked out over 53,000 items in the past 12 months, about 61% of them children’s, and issued 873 new library cards. Those figures are pretty good for a six-year-old library just building a clientele. As members of the University Park Public Library owning and governing organization, you deserve a round of applause for your contributions.

Thank you.