OCLC was kind enough to send me an advance copy of their lat­est report, From Aware­ness to Fund­ing: A study of library sup­port in Amer­ica, and I have to say that the results of their sur­vey are fas­ci­nat­ing. Thanks to a grant from the Gates Foun­da­tion, OCLC was able to part­ner with Leo Bur­nett (yes, that Leo Bur­nett) to sur­vey Amer­i­can vot­ers about their atti­tudes and sup­port for fund­ing pub­lic libraries.

If you’re in a pub­lic library, I can’t encour­age you enough to get a copy of this report and read it for your­self. You can down­load one big PDF, down­load indi­vid­ual chap­ters, or order a print copy (highly rec­om­mended for admin­is­tra­tors and trustees). The sur­vey iden­ti­fies four types of vot­ers — chronic non vot­ers, vot­ers with bar­ri­ers to sup­port (finan­cial, detached, “the web wins”), prob­a­ble sup­port­ers, and super sup­port­ers. The report exam­ines each one in depth based on sur­veys and focus group dis­cus­sions about fund­ing sup­port for libraries.

You really need to read the whole thing for your­self, but there are some key points I want to high­light here.

1. Most res­i­dents don’t under­stand that their pub­lic library is funded by local taxes. This isn’t a big shock, but it is crit­i­cally impor­tant in the report’s con­clu­sion that vot­ers believe libraries are ade­quately funded and that if they need money, it will “come from some­where” so they don’t feel an urgency to vote in favor of fund­ing requests.
2. “Super sup­port­ers” are a library’s best bet for “def­i­nitely” vot­ing yes, but even their sup­port is latent and they have an under­ly­ing fear that the library is becom­ing less rel­e­vant. Any fund­ing cam­paign has to acti­vate their love for the library and focus on sup­port, not usage, because it turns out that library users don’t vote for the library. It seems counter-intuitive, but try­ing to get the vote out among your users is the wrong strat­egy. Instead, “super” and “prob­a­ble” sup­port­ers use the library less but sup­port it finan­cially because of their belief in the power of the library based on their own child­hood mem­o­ries or per­sonal trans­for­ma­tional experiences.
3. Res­i­dents who vote to increase taxes to sup­port the library believe in its power to trans­form peo­ples’ lives, not because they value the infor­ma­tion ser­vices we pro­vide. In fact, the more we try to hang our hat in the infor­ma­tion space, the more irrel­e­vant we will become in the eyes of those vot­ers. “The research indi­cates that trans­for­ma­tion, not infor­ma­tion, dri­ves finan­cial sup­port.” (p.4–12)
4. Any sup­port cam­paign, whether local or national, would have to focus on increas­ing fund­ing for libraries, not on get­ting peo­ple to use our ser­vices more or mak­ing them more aware of the vari­ety of ser­vices we offer. Doing that just con­tin­ues to play into our own mis­con­cep­tion that library users vote yes with their wal­lets when it comes to bal­lot ini­tia­tives, and the sta­tis­tics show that’s just not true.

In the end, the report hypoth­e­sizes that in a town of 50,000 peo­ple, a library would need to swing 236 votes from the “prob­a­ble sup­port­ers” group in order to pass a ref­er­en­dum. On the one hand, that sounds rel­a­tively easy, but the key is to acti­vate the latent pas­sion for the library in prob­a­ble and super sup­port­ers who are com­mu­nity activists so that they will vis­i­bly sup­port the ini­tia­tive and recruit oth­ers to the cause based on that passion.

I find so many dif­fer­ent sta­tis­tics in this report fas­ci­nat­ing, but there’s one that isn’t explic­itly noted in the con­clu­sions that I want to high­light. In the sur­veys, six of the nine vot­ing groups said that the main library ser­vice they use is check­ing out non­fic­tion books. Of the three groups that didn’t cite that use first, two cited it as their sec­ond most heav­ily used service.

“…Many described the abil­ity to expand their hori­zons as the heart of the library’s value.… (p.5–6)

Par­tic­i­pants recounted how they dis­cov­ered a pas­sion for a topic that formed the start of a new career or hobby and ulti­mately helped them achieve their poten­tial.… They cred­ited the library with help­ing form who they are and what they have achieved as adults. Many cred­ited poignant inter­ac­tions with their child­hood librar­i­ans as impact­ing the direc­tion of their lives. Some indi­cated that the library gave them the vision to do bet­ter and go fur­ther than they might oth­er­wise have been des­tined for.” (p.5–7)

So as great as our fic­tion col­lec­tions and read­ers’ advi­sory skills are, the ser­vice that is cited the most by vot­ers is our non­fic­tion col­lec­tion, and the focus groups in this report cen­ter their pas­sion for the library on its trans­for­ma­tive power to make them bet­ter human beings. I can’t prove it, but I’m guess­ing these two facts are related, and the per­son I know who explains this the best is Michael Stephens. If you’re not read­ing his blog every day, you should be, but you already knew that.

I’ve had the plea­sure of watch­ing Michael present sev­eral times, and when he first started talk­ing about how “Library 2.0 encour­ages the heart” (and Librar­ian 2.0), I have to admit that I thought it was a lit­tle “new age-y.” But he’s con­tin­ued to build on his mes­sage, and I think this report con­firms what he’s been say­ing for the last few years, that the future of pub­lic libraries — both in terms of ser­vice and for gar­ner­ing fund­ing sup­port — is about pro­vid­ing that trans­for­ma­tional expe­ri­ence for peo­ple. Under­stand that I’m not say­ing fic­tion can’t or doesn’t do that. I just don’t think we’re going to swing 236 votes based on our fic­tion collections.

I have more to say about this report, and I hope to make time to con­tinue blog­ging about it, but this report deserves your own atten­tion if you’re a pub­lic librar­ian or if you care about pub­lic libraries, because it’s a roadmap for rel­e­vancy, fund­ing, and even greater growth. Although I wish ALA had run this sur­vey and issued this report, I give full credit to OCLC for this valu­able contribution.