Today my focus is on community information. Recently our library service surveyed our users and non users. A telephone survey method was used and while we realise this is not the best method, we had to use this method to provide a proper comparison with our last user and non user survey which was performed in the same way.
It was interesting to note that both users and non users said they would use the library more if the library provided access to community information. Of course, the survey did not allow those survey to ellaborate on what community information they wanted, so we may have to do a little more digging. But I'd be interested to hear what community information other libraries offer/collect for their users?
Our council did have an up-to-date community directory but I believe due to the time consuming nature of keeping up to date this has fallen by the wayside. And due to our limited staff resources, I wouldn't be putting our hand up to take on this role. But perhaps that's what the community thinks we should be doing.
Our libraries do have small notice boards to put up community events but I find that our communities are often doing so much that the notice board gets over crowded and people don't often read everything that is on it - information overload.
So how do we determine what community information our users/potential users need when our library service spans across many different communities?
I did a quick search on Google to find different ways Councils/Libraries have been collecting and making accessible community information, here are a few examples:
- Parramatta City Council - Community Information Index
- State Library of Western Australia - Government and Community Information
- Wollongong City Libraries - Community Information
- Alexdrina Council - Connecting Up
- Ku-ring-gai Library - Community Information Database
How do you look for community information?
I've moved to a few different places in my lifetime and direction to where I could community information would've been helpful. Probably more important now I have a family but in the past I would look to see if the town had a gym, pool, parks, community groups, etc.
I had this idea that we should team up with the local real estate agents and put together a library/town information pack that can be distributed to new tenants and home buyers in the area. I'm still working on what to put in the pack and where to get all the "community information" from. Do any other libraries already do this? What do you include?
Anyway, a few things to think about and work on.
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