Libraries in America - who is using them?

Just read a post on another thread which mentioned stats on student (presumably high school) use of public libraries in America. Stats were: 20% White, 80% Asian, 0% Black.

I'm curious to know who has made the effort to take their school aged kids to public libraries regularly throughout their school years? And if you haven't done so, why didn't you?

 

Do you have a link to the actual study?

 

http://www.pewinternet.org/2007/12/30/chapter-3-who-goes-to-public-libraries/

What's the next false claim you can't take 5 seconds to Google?

 

I found your source. He didn't even provide a link. I guess we'll all know better next time you make a claim.

 

I use the one on my campus usually because its quiet and open all night.

I don't think I've ever had to open a book there however. You can source everything online now, books are simply a waste of time. If I need to order a book to read I simply rent it from the bookstore.

 

Libraries are just a place to use the internet now. Should society ever collapse, they'll be important again. But Im not sure if keeping them around for that is really worth it.

 

Not sure about your stats, but I am curious as to where they come from as I am skeptical of those percentages. I've seen a rather diverse group of patrons at quite a number of our local branches. Heck... one is even in an Hispanic neighborhood and quite busy at times, but your numbers don't list them at all.

Anyway... both of our kids used the public library near our house while growing up here all the way through high school, and still use it. Our oldest, that will be 23 in August, still uses the same one near here although she lives across town. Not sure why she still uses the one over by us when she lives right by a newer and larger one. Maybe it's a familiarity thing. Our son, who will soon be 18, still uses it for research papers. My wife even uses it sometimes when she'd rather borrow a book than buy it, saves us money... sometimes. She still buys books though, but I'm not going to get into our house turning into another de-facto library. The whole family has made pretty good use of the public libraries here, and still do.

 

I don't know where the stats came from, but was interested in digging out more info.

I admire your use of public libraries. They are priceless resources.

 

Only if you think libraries are solely for the acquisition of information. They aren't.

They are quiet, calm, temples of learning, which expose children to the love of books and reading, provide a haven from the world outside, offer escapism, access to difficult to obtain focused data, incredible research units, etc etc etc. Mostly they are very human and special places, and kids raised to use libraries almost always gain enormously from it.

 

Also a good place for the homeless to crash..

 

I agree and books, the actual bound volumes, are such special things. I love everything about them even how they smell and just how they feel in your hands. My grandkids bought me a Kindle, you can put damn near a whole library on one but I hate it and only use it when I travel.

 

I understand.

 

The last library I entered was about 70% Asian. This in a city where Asians only comprised about 15% of the population.
I only saw one Mexican, despite Mexicans also making up about 15% of the city's population.

In another semi-rural part of the country with a mostly white population, walking into a library in the middle of the day, about 60% of them appeared to be homeless people. I think I maybe only saw two mothers with young children, and maybe 3 or 4 nerdy looking females.

 

My children still loves to read the old fashion way.....by reading real books, not the electronic kind. I find it odd as they are comfortable on the computer for many things, just not for books. We frequent our libraries often, so they can borrow books they want to read.

 

Who the hell wants to trek to a public library - which might be in the next town - search for a specific book, find it isn't there, ask the attendant to reserve it for you, go back home after the fool's errand, then turn out again to the library when the attendant tells you it's back on the shelves, when you can be reading it within literally 20 seconds of clicking on BUY and downloading it? DUH!

 

I see you are too LAZY to drive anywhere. It's apparently you haven't step foot in a library for quite sometime.

Did you miss the part where I said they want to read a REAL book?? Click buy and downloading it...pfffftttt....

 

I agree, asking millennials to use a library is a bit like asking them to slowly, ritually, meditatively brew and drink Tea, ...

Why bother, when they can smoke Spice topped with K9 and then guggle down the Bong Water.

Allot quicker way to get your toluene and formaldehyde!

Those old Gen X people don't know a damn thing...

-

 

All you have to do is visit your local public library.

First thing you notice you see no blacks or Hispanics.

 

The few homeless we have here (in my area) are not allowed to stay in our libraries for longer than an hour or so. Even then, if they smell, or are bothering people in any way they're asked to leave.

Meanwhile, your observations on ethnic mix are interesting. You didn't mention black people?

 

Why, though? What are the parents thinking?

 

That's not the only purpose of a library, but it is in fact, the most important one. It provides an endless supply of reading material for FREE. It levels the playing field. No child need be 'too poor' to become an avid reader. And as we all know, and research emphatically backs, readers are always ahead of the game - academically and professionally, and often even personally.

 

Ditto. My kids always prefer to read an actual book, despite being tech-heads in regards to everything else.

 

You wouldn't be influencing them by any chance would you? I certainly don't miss the days when pages started falling out, or the book I was reading was so heavy (in bed, where I do all my reading) that I kept dropping it on the floor; and during the winter I had to keep taking my other arm out of the warm sheets to turn the pages, whereas a tap on the ereader with the thumb of the hand I'm holding the device by accomplishes it in less than a split second and zero physical effort or inconvenience: also I can keep an eye on the time in the top right-hand corner for my 2200 deadline - if I can stay awake that long. Nope, you'll never get me reading those paper thangs.

 

Gen Y is pretty much all young adults now. It's Generation Z next, and that generation might be more clueless than mine in terms of politics.

 

I suggest that 99% of low information voters that want something for nothing have never used a library.