
What do the public want from libraries? Practitioner guide
What do the public want from libraries? Practitioner guide
By
Museums Libraries & Archives
SUMMARY
This guide for library practitioners draws on a large scale piece of research into the attitudes and wants of library users and suggests ways forward for library professionals as well as offering a series of case studies.
Key recommendations around the user experience include:
- Pay close attention to stock performance
- Stock selection is arguably a library’s most important set of choices
- Ensure an expanded offer (including coffee and training and employment support)
- ‘Extra’ offers can be used to attract new users, without incurring additional net expenditure and friends packages are an opportunity
- Use customer insight to make changes
Key recommendations around communication include:
- Build awareness of the full range of services
- Keep the brand in people’s minds
- Marketing needs leadership and a share of resources
- Grow the offer - if it fits with the brand
- Keep in touch - with mailing list and digital marketing
- Segment and target the audience
Key recommendations around libraries as public spaces include:
- Don’t lose (quiet) seated reading space
- Exploit larger spaces to entice target groups
- Managing the quality of the physical space is an important responsibility
- Involve library users in managing the space
- Libraries can offer themselves as gateways to other services
This guide is born out of the results of a new landmark piece of research that explores in depth what people today really want from library services. Our research discovered afresh that public libraries really do hold a special place in the nation’s hearts. Even people who rarely use libraries themselves see them as essential for others and for society as a whole.
Resource type: Research | Published: 2013
