Public Library

Fieldwork: Reference Library Collection Observation

Library 1: Palos Heights Public Library, 12501 S 71st Ave, Palos Heights, IL 60463
Physical Visit:
1. Quality The books were in good condition. Some of the books that looked dated had to do with noncurrent information (The Civil War, Antiques). The subject areas of finance, antique and collectible prices,
almanacs and encyclopedias were all current.
2. Quantity The collection was housed in both tall three-shelf bookcases and shorter two-shelf
bookcases. I estimated there to be roughly 4,500 volumes in the collection.
3. Breadth/depth From what I can tell, the librarys resources meet the demographic needs of the
residents. (90% white, with a median income of $70,835 in 2011)
4. Bibliographic support I was able to locate several indexes, dictionaries, and instruction guides. I did
not see any subject guides.
Electronic collection linked to the website:
1.

Quantity Due to the number of available resources, it would be more expedient to list the
subject areas that were covered: digital media, business resources, consumer resources, genealogy,
health, homework resources, literature, language, music, news, research, and travel. Subscriptionbased databases: 17 Open-source databases: 21 Free websites: 13
2. Quality I would say that in these resources mostly supplement the print collection. The only area of
overlap that I saw was in the Health section. There was the online database The Physicians Desk
Reference as well as a physical copy in the library. I imagine that the physical copy was for the older
patrons who are uncomfortable with or unfamiliar with the web-based service.
3. Breadth/depth The breadth of the electronic collection was impressive. There were 51 available
resources.
4. Bibliographic support The resources are organized alphabetically or by subject. There is also an
alphabetical list with description. I perused the site and did not see any further instruction/assistance
available online. They do have the option to ask a librarian via text.
Second Library:
Fieldwork: Reference Library Collection Observation
Library 2: Orland Park Public Library, 14921 Ravinia Avenue, Orland Park, IL 60462
Physical Visit:
1. Quality The books are new and in excellent condition.
2. Quantity My first impression was that the collection was HUGE. I estimate that there are 5,660 books
in the collection.

3. Breadth/depth The breadth of the collection covers twenty-four subject areas. I think it fits the needs
of the population (86% white, 6.5% Hispanic, 4.9% Asian, with a median income of $74, 759), but I was
disappointed to see that there were no reference guides in Spanish as that is the largest minority group.
4. Bibliographic support I did see subject guides and instructional guides. I also saw indexes,
dictionaries, and subject-specific encyclopedias.
Electronic collection linked to the website:
1. Quantity This library had 24 databases available. Ancestry Library, BookFlix, Business Source
Premier, Career Library, The Careers College, Consumer Health Complete, Consumer Reports, EBSCO
Host, Gale Virtual Reference Library, Heritage Quest, Master File Premier, Middle Search Plus, Morning
Star Investment Resource Center, Newspaper Source, NoveList Plus, NoveList Plus K-8, OCLC First
Search, Points of View, Primary Search, ProQuest, Reference USA, Rocket Languages, Something About
the Author Online, and World Book Online. As you had to have a valid Orland Park Library card to enter
ANY of the databases, I am not sure which are subscription-based, open source or free.
2. Quality I would say that these resources supplement the reference collection. The bulk of the physical
reference collection seemed to be aimed at research-based inquiries, whereas the above databases
include things like NoveList and OCLC.
3. Breadth/depth - The breadth of the collection covers subject areas that I think are useful to students,
business people, and people with special interests such as genealogy and foreign languages. I think it fits
the needs of the population (average age: 45.2 years, with 16 different schools in the k-12 age range
this tells me that there are a large number of families in the community).
4. Bibliographic support the databases are organized alphabetically. There is no instructional support
from what I can see.
After touring these two libraries, I would like to see what the reference collection looks like in a more
diverse community.