"So - do different communities really have different needs? Different tastes? Is it a matter of demographics?"
Yep, as would make sense if you have a community more business based or more rural, one more family orientated or mostly senior.
My childhood library went through a big change from when I was young to now. When I was a kid, the community was largely corporate and it reflected in their collection (they had big reading rooms and mostly business related databases). Now the community is more multi-cultural and very family orientated, so they've had to change accordingly. Most libraries can't afford to provide it all so they look at who their audience is.
In the community where I work, it's very hard to get school based milleges passed because there's a higher senior population, whereas it may be easier in another community. This sort of reflects how the community might react to what's in their library.
Some things in the collection come directly via patron personal requests. Since the library is funded by patron taxes, that makes sense. Yet the library still has a responsibility to provide variety of information, so there are things we purchase that may not be requested, because it should be available. This is where librarians make judgement calls, and that's going to depend on the librarian.
And of course all of this depends on your budget and space (do you have room for X or Y? can you afford it? how much?), both of which are directly related to your community's budget and how much they pay towards taxes. Our collection is big and we have a big library because we have a rich community and they pay a lot in taxes! Many neighboring libraries have had to shut down databases or collections that we still run because they can not fund it based on what their community gives them.
My salary is higher than someone of my same position in another community because the community I work for is richer.
Other kinds of libraries (special, medical, school) of course work differently, and some public libraries might work differently outside of Michigan. I don't know. :)
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2007-09-25 05:48 pm (UTC)Yep, as would make sense if you have a community more business based or more rural, one more family orientated or mostly senior.
My childhood library went through a big change from when I was young to now. When I was a kid, the community was largely corporate and it reflected in their collection (they had big reading rooms and mostly business related databases). Now the community is more multi-cultural and very family orientated, so they've had to change accordingly. Most libraries can't afford to provide it all so they look at who their audience is.
In the community where I work, it's very hard to get school based milleges passed because there's a higher senior population, whereas it may be easier in another community. This sort of reflects how the community might react to what's in their library.
Some things in the collection come directly via patron personal requests. Since the library is funded by patron taxes, that makes sense. Yet the library still has a responsibility to provide variety of information, so there are things we purchase that may not be requested, because it should be available. This is where librarians make judgement calls, and that's going to depend on the librarian.
And of course all of this depends on your budget and space (do you have room for X or Y? can you afford it? how much?), both of which are directly related to your community's budget and how much they pay towards taxes. Our collection is big and we have a big library because we have a rich community and they pay a lot in taxes! Many neighboring libraries have had to shut down databases or collections that we still run because they can not fund it based on what their community gives them.
My salary is higher than someone of my same position in another community because the community I work for is richer.
Other kinds of libraries (special, medical, school) of course work differently, and some public libraries might work differently outside of Michigan. I don't know. :)