Use of Public Libraries by Immigrants

Suggestions for Future Research

The most important change suggested for future studies is to gather data for individuals rather than household-level library use. With individual use data, individual demographic data for immigrants such as year of entry, English-language proficiency, and citizenship status (naturalized versus noncitizen) could be explored as possible contributors to likelihood of using the library. Education level of the individual rather than education level of the household reference person would be a more valuable predictor. Some household variables identified in the literature deserve further study such as presence of school-aged children in the family, household income, and level of English-language reading and speaking skills. While the literature identified several barriers for use by Latino immigrants, this information has not been identified for immigrant groups from other world regions. Similarly, while library materials and programs most useful for Latino immigrants have been studied and some suggestions for Asian patrons have been made, additional studies that gather data on most useful materials for immigrants from other regions could help librarians serving these patrons.

The previous studies on Latino immigrants are on single U.S. geographic regions. Comparative analyses of library needs, for example, of Latino immigrants in California versus those in New York could shed light on regional differences in the United States. Similar studies on other immigrant groups would also be useful. The literature suggests that newly arrived Latino immigrants need more information on practical issues such as finding jobs, housing, learning English, and learning computer skills. Do immigrants from other regions display these same needs? While this study examined the tendency of immigrants to use the public library, future studies need to examine to what use immigrant library patrons put their libraries.

While this study contained only quantitative data, qualitative studies could enrich the knowledge base by giving immigrants a voice to articulate for themselves the barriers they perceive, the information needs they want the library to fill, and their perceptions of the public library. The literature identified several means of reaching immigrants such as focus groups at community centers, door to door interviewing, and street-corner canvassing.

In conclusion, the picture that library professionals have of immigrants’ use of public libraries is incomplete. While additional studies of the library use of immigrants from Latin America and Asia would be useful, there is a particular need for studies of immigrants from other world regions.

Susan K. Burke is Assistant Professor, School of Library and Information Studies, University of Oklahoma, Norman. Submitted for review October 5, 2006; revised and accepted for publication July 23, 2007.

References

1. 2003 Yearbook of Immigration Statistics (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Office of Immigration Statistics, 2004), www.uscis.gov/graphics/shared/statistics/yearbook/2003/2003Yearbook.pdf (accessed Aug. 23, 2006).
2. Campbell Gibson and Kay Jung, Historical Census Statistics of the Foreign-born Population of the United States: 1850–2000: Working Paper No. 81 (U.S. Census Bureau, Population Division, 2006), www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0081/twps0081.pdf (accessed July 25, 2008).
3. The Foreign-born Population in 2004 (U.S. Census Bureau, Population Profile of the United States: Dynamic Version), www.census.gov/population/www/pop-profile/files/dynamic/ForeignBorn.pdf (accessed July 25, 2008).
4. Public Library Services to New Americans: Speeding Transitions to Learning, Work and Life in the U.S. (Evanston, Ill.: Urban Libraries Council, 2003): 4.
5. Wayne A. Wiegand, An Active Instrument for Propaganda: The American Public Library During World War I (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1989): 117.
6. Lawrence J. White, The Public Library in the 1980s: The Problems of Choice (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1983); Douglas Zweizig and Brenda Dervin, “Public Library Use, Users, Uses: Advances in Knowledge of the Characteristics and Needs of the Adult Clientele of American Public Libraries,” in Advances in Librarianship, ed. Melvin J. Voigt and Michael H. Harris (New York: Academic Pr., 1977): 231–55.
7. Zweizig and Dervin, “Public Library Use, Users, Uses,” 236.
8. Ibid., 238–40.
9. Judith Payne, Public Libraries Face California’s Ethnic and Racial Diversity (Santa Monica, Calif.: Rand, 1988).
10. Carol L. Kronus, “Patterns of Adult Library Use: A Regression and Path Analysis,” Adult Education 23 (Winter 1973): 115–31.
11. Zweizig and Dervin, “Public Library Use, Users, Uses.”
12. Amado M. Padilla, Public Library Services for Immigrant Populations in California (Sacramento, Calif.: California State Library Foundation, 1991).
13. Susan Luevano-Molina, “Ethnographic Perspectives on Trans-national Mexican Immigrant Library Users,” in Library Services to Latinos: An Anthology, ed. Salvadore Guerena (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2000): 169–80.
14. Susan Luevano-Molina, “Mexican/Latino Immigrants and the Santa Ana Public Library: An Urban Ethnography,” in Immigrant Politics and the Public Library, ed. Susan Luevano-Molina (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 2001): 43–63.
15. Ninfa Almance Trejo, “Impact of Proposition 187 on Public Libraries and Elementary Education in Tucson, Arizona,” in Immigrant Politics and the Public Library, ed. Susan Luevano-Molina (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 2001): 89–100.
16. Rincon and Associates, Survey of Library Needs for North Carolina Hispanics (2000) http://statelibrary.dcr.state.nc.us/hispanic/nclibrpt.pdf (accessed Oct. 5, 2006).
17. Frances H. Flythe, Identification of the Information Needs of Newly Arrived Hispanic/Latino Immigrants in Durham County, North Carolina, and How the Public Library May Address Those Need (master’s thesis, Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina, 2001), http://ils.unc.edu/MSpapers/2666.pdf (accessed Oct. 5, 2006).
18. Beth Bala and Denice Adkins, “Library and Information Needs of Latinos in Dunklin County, Missouri,” Public Libraries 43 (Mar./Apr. 2004): 119–22.
19. Payne, Public Libraries Face California’s Ethnic and Racial Diversity; Padilla, Public Library Services for Immigrant Populations in California; Jon Sudell, “Library Service to Hispanic Immigrants of Forsyth County, North Carolina: A Community Collaboration,” in Library Services to Latinos: An Anthology, ed. Salvadore Guerena (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2000): 143–68; Rincon and Associates, Survey of Library Needs for North Carolina Hispanics; Bala and Adkins, “Library and Information Needs of Latinos in Dunklin County, Missouri.”
20. Sherry Shiuan Su and Charles W. Conaway, “Information and a Forgotten Minority: Elderly Chinese Immigrants,” Library and Information Science Research 17 (Winter 1995): 69–86.
21. Padilla, Public Library Services for Immigrant Populations in California.
22. Cheryl Metoyer-Duran, Gatekeepers in Ethnolinguistic Communities (Norwood, N.J.: Ablex, 1993).
23. Public Library Services to New Americans.
24. Louis Escobar-Matute, Joa-Ming Huang, and Sara Martinez, “Language Barriers: How Do You Handle Them?” (panel presented at the annual meeting of the Oklahoma Library Association, Oklahoma City, Apr. 4, 2007).
25. Zweizig and Dervin, “Public Library Use, Users, Uses”; Payne, Public Libraries Face California’s Ethnic and Racial Diversity; Kronus, “Patterns of Adult Library Use.”
26. Susan K. Burke, “Use of Public Libraries by Native Americans,” Library Quarterly 77 (Oct. 2007), 429–61; Kronus, “Patterns of Adult Library Use.”
27. Rincon and Associates, Survey of Library Needs for North Carolina Hispanics.
28. Scott Nicholson, “Understanding Communities of Library Users through Information Seeking and Retrieval in Context,” forthcoming.
29. U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Current Population Survey, October 2002: School Enrollment/Library Use [Computer file]. ICPSR release (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Bureau of the Census [producer], 2004; Ann Arbor, Mich.: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor]).
30. Burke, “Use of Public Libraries by Native Americans”; Rincon and Associates, Survey of Library Needs for North Carolina Hispanics.
31. Bala and Adkins, “Library and Information Needs of Latinos in Dunklin County, Missouri.”
32. Flythe, Identification of the Information Needs of Newly Arrived Hispanic/Latino Immigrants.
33. Rincon and Associates, Survey of Library Needs for North Carolina Hispanics.
34. Luevano-Molina, “Ethnographic Perspectives on Trans-national Mexican Immigrant Library Users.”
35. Metoyer-Duran, Gatekeepers in Ethnolinguistic Communities.
36. Trejo, “Impact of Proposition 187.”
37. Su and Conaway, “Information and a Forgotten Minority.”
38. Metoyer-Duran, Gatekeepers in Ethnolinguistic Communities.
39. Burke, “Use of Public Libraries by Native Americans”; Rincon and Associates, Survey of Library Needs for North Carolina Hispanics.

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