Two previous studies found perceived distance from the public library to be related to library use rates.30 Respondents who perceived that they lived closer to the library had higher rates of use than those who thought of the library as farther away. When households of U.S.–born respondents (n = 49,915) were analyzed on library use by distance from the library, there was a negative relationship between distance to the library and likelihood of library use in the past month by people in the household. At various distances from the library, rates of public library use in the past month were:
- less than 1 mile, 35.9% of households used the public library;
- 1–2 miles, 32.6%;
- 3–5 miles, 29.6%;
- 6–10 miles, 25.3%; and
- more than 10 miles, 19.8%.
While nearly 20% of nonimmigrant households were located six or more miles from a public library, immigrant households were much less likely to be that far away (6–11%). This suggests that immigrants are somewhat more likely than nonimmigrants to live in cities and towns, and less likely to live in rural areas farther from libraries. In this dataset there were not enough immigrant households at the further distances to analyze, so the categories were collapsed to less than a mile, one to two miles, and more than two miles. Immigrant households did not show the same clear correlation between distance from the library and library use shown by nonimmigrant households. Table 3 shows that four immigrant groups had the same pattern as nonimmigrant households of decreased library use with increased distance (Middle Eastern, Caribbean, East European, and Central American or Mexican). Three immigrant groups had the highest use in the middle category, one to two miles from the library (South Asian, African, and East Asian). The remaining four immigrant groups had little to no effect on library use by distance (South American, Southeast Asian, European, and Canadian or other North American). Canada or other North American did show a slight increase of 5 percentage points as distance increased. These data suggest that for immigrant groups, distance of household from public library is not a good predictor of library use.
From the literature review, number of persons in household was found to have no effect on use of public libraries. In table 4 it can be seen that indeed households with more people were much more likely to have used the public library in the past month than households with only one or two people. For all households except those of Canadians or other North Americans, the rates of library use for three or more people were more than double the rates for one to two people. Since this dataset does not have individual-level data, it cannot be determined whether the higher use rate for larger households is a result of more potential library users in the household, the presence of children (also found in the literature to affect library use), or whether individuals in larger households are more likely to use the public library for some other reason. Some immigrant geographic regions are much more likely to have larger households than immigrants from other regions. For example, only 9.5% of immigrants from Central America or Mexico live in one-person households, while 49.1% of European immigrants live alone. Households most likely to have only one or two persons were, in descending order, European, Canadian or other North American, East European, U.S.–born, and African (from 77.2 to 59.3%). Only 25.2% of Central American or Mexican households had only one or two people.
In summary for this section, sociodemographic variables can be useful predictors for library use, but their effect does not always apply to immigrant groups in the same way as to households of U.S.–born residents. While education level of household reference person and number of persons in household correlated to likelihood of public library use, geographic origin of household members was an important modifier that affected the use of these variables as predictors.
Applying the Results of the Study
A library could apply these data results by using them in conjunction with a community profile to predict library use patterns of different immigrant groups. A community profile can give general figures of the size of the various immigrant groups in a particular community. Size of the immigrant group from the community profile can be combined with likelihood of using the library from this study to give a predictive figure of possible library use by that immigrant group. While South Asians, for example, are more likely to use the library, immigrants from Central America or Mexico might be more likely to have a larger presence in the community, and that may result in more numbers of library users from Central America or Mexico. Identifying the likely patron base is useful to libraries that are planning marketing and outreach efforts. Predicting the information needs of the community base can help the library make good program and materials decisions such as languages in which to purchase materials, literacy levels to target, and other patron special needs.
Library outreach and collection development efforts could take into account factors such as average education levels, years of entry, and household size when planning for different groups. In addition to this, the best way in any given community to find out the library needs of community members is through outreach to community leaders who know their populations and are in touch with their information needs.
This study shows that useful predictive variables for library use by immigrants include region of world from which they immigrated, education level (in this study education level of household reference person), and number of persons in the household. Distance from the library was not a good predictor of library use for immigrants.
Comparison of Study Results with Prior Studies
It is difficult to compare the results of this study to the previous studies cited in the literature review because the variables were defined differently between studies. Bala and Adkins stated that 22% of Latino residents of a Missouri county had used the library in the past 6 months.31 Flythe reported 22% of Hispanic immigrants surveyed in North Carolina had used the public library, but without specifying within a specific period of time.32 Rincon and Associates found that 40% of predominately foreign-born Hispanics in North Carolina had used the library in the past year.33 Luevano-Molina reported 50% of Latino immigrants in Santa Ana, California had used the public library within an unspecified time period.34 Metoyer-Duran found 79% of Latino community leaders had used the library in the past year. Over half of her respondents were U.S. born.35 In Trejo’s study, 70 out of 71 respondents had used a library at some time in their lives. Her respondents were a mixture of Hispanic immigrants, Mexican Americans, and U.S. whites.36 The current study data showed that Caribbean and Central American/Mexican immigrant households used public libraries at basically the same rate, 28.6% and 27.2% in the past month. Similar to the study by Rincon and Associates, 40.1% and 38.2% had used libraries in the past year. South American immigrant households had a slightly higher, but statistically different, use rate of 36.6% in the past month and 49.8% in the past year.
There were two previous studies on Asians’ use of U.S. public libraries. Su and Conway reported that 63.3% of elderly Chinese immigrants in the Los Angeles, California region had used the public library in the past year.37 Metoyer-Duran found that Chinese and Korean community information leaders in California used the public library at a rate of 83% for Chinese and 79% for Korean in the past year. Most of her Chinese and Korean respondents were immigrants.38 In both of these studies the East Asian respondents used the public library at a higher rate than those in the current study which showed East Asian households using the public library at a rate of 33.8% in the past month and 48.0% in the past year.
As with previous general studies, these data showed that education level was strongly correlated with public library use. This study also supported the previous assertion that family size, or number in household, affected library use. While Rincon and Associates and Burke found distance to the library to be a useful predictor of library use in other studies, that variable was not a good predictor for immigrant households in this study.39