PROJECT

RICHLAND LIBRARY RESEARCH

AMANDA COYLE
KELLY HOLCOMBE

DATE

10 OCTOBER 2014

CLIENT

RICHLAND LIBRARY

Richland
Library

a center of the community,

providing resources and services
that help people find jobs, get
ready for and succeed in school,
and access technology and
Public library with 11 active
resources for learning and
branches across the county

leisure

Funded by taxpayers

Recently awarded a
$59,000,000 bond
referendum to renovate their
locations and expand
available services

to provide the
experiences that inspire,
inform and entertain

- Richland Library Mission

-Richland Library Annual Report

Serves a wide variety of

children, teens and adults

Serves cardholders as far

away as Charlotte and
Charleston

Currently serving 215,492

total registered borrowers

Richland Library uses diversified

functions to reach their goals,
included:
informational sessions

tutoring

services to the elderly

educational and
entertainment programs

family history center

job placement services

book lending (online and print)

magazine and DVD lending

music downloads

public programs

rooms for rent

There is something
for everyone

Problem Faced
Target demographic: non-users

Cardholders who have been inactive for at least twelve

months

Physically checking out print materials

Card use is measured: Logging into their online accounts

Internet use on the premises

Use of the job or family history centers

Paying fines in person

A library card is not scanned upon entrance to the
building, nor is it checked upon entering one of the
librarys programs

This may skew the non-user data

Basic Research Questions/

What We Wanted To Learn
What, exactly, is oered to cardholders beyond just borrowing books?

What attracts people to Richland Library?

What are the most common reasons behind library card inactivity?

How can we combat these reasons?

We used our research to further our understanding of why non-users have
been inactive, as well as other demographic information about them
including gender, age, number of children, socioeconomic status and
education level and priorities when it came to library services.

We also used research to find out how Richland Library communicates

with its cardholders. It was important to know what the organization already
did to engage with cardholders in order to determine what did and did not
work, and what we should capitalize on or avoid in our campaign.

Secondary Research
Richland Librarys website

Richland Library 2013 Annual Report

Access, the organizations bi-monthly magazine

September/October issue

Gathered information by conducting online searches,

visiting Richland Librarys main location and browsing
the organizations various social media outlets

Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest

Secondary Research
Findings
Twitter: 4539 followers

History, mission, values

Facebook: 7314 page likes

Programs and events oered

Programs and services outside the realm of print book lending

The scale of the public served

Library activity for the last year (2013) including the number of items checked out, the
total number of registered borrowers and number of attendees at outreach programs

Examples of the types of outreach programs it oers and the number oered over a
two-month period thrives on the Internet with 1,976,717 website visits in 2014

From 2009 to 2013:

Door count is up 20 percent

Circulation is up 38 percent

Hours of access have increased by 2080 hours a year

Primary Research: October 10

In-depth interview with Betsy Crick, the marketing coordinator for Richland Library

Goal: to understand the problems the library faces when it comes to their non-users
in order to potentially identify ways to increase activity

We discussed the dierent services provided by the library and the statistical data of
the non-users

2014 Year-to-date data

Could be compared to the 2013 Annual Report for a clearer picture of

what programs and areas of the library were increasing or decreasing in
use or popularity

Richland Library cardholder survey

Distributed to 84,042 cardholders

6,865 responses received

342 responses were from non-users

Demographic information, including reasons behind not using the library in

the past year

PRIMARY RESEARCH FINDINGS: CARDHOLDER SURVEY

PRIMARY RESEARCH FINDINGS: CARDHOLDER SURVEY

PRIMARY RESEARCH FINDINGS: CARDHOLDER SURVEY

PRIMARY RESEARCH FINDINGS: CARDHOLDER SURVEY

PRIMARY RESEARCH
FINDINGS:
CARDHOLDER SURVEY

BOOK
PURCHASING HABITS

PRIMARY RESEARCH
FINDINGS:
CARDHOLDER SURVEY

PROGRAMMING PRIORITIES
(BY AGE)

PRIMARY RESEARCH FINDINGS: CARDHOLDER SURVEY

PRIMARY RESEARCH FINDINGS: CARDHOLDER SURVEY

PRIMARY RESEARCH FINDINGS: YTD DATA

Resident

Non-Resident

Cardholders

Total

Total

TOTAL

Active

101,102

47

1,343

53

102,445

Inactive

114,390

53

1,175

47

115,565

TOTAL

215,492

2,518

218,010

PRIMARY RESEARCH FINDINGS: YTD DATA

In-library Programs

Year-to-date (YTD) 2014

Community Engagement

108

Computers and Technology

347

Cultural and Arts

1,244

Early Literacy

1,369

Lifeskills

340

Literacy

777

Workforce Development

271

TOTAL

4,456

PRIMARY RESEARCH FINDINGS: YTD DATA

In-library Programs
ABendees

0-1

3-5

6-8

9-12

13-18

Adult

TOTAL

112

145

387

487

349

298

2,874

4,652

28

27

36

32

1,610

1,735

Cultural and Arts

274

904

1,851

2,181

1,631

Early Literacy

3,379

4,791

6,045

1,957

1,199

160

10,569 28,100

Lifeskills

17

105

351

399

201

2,283

3,359

Literacy

294

541

2,135

2,581

1,688

793

3,831

11,865

Workforce
Development

11

1,493

1,504

TOTAL

4,062

Community
Engagement
Computers and
Technology

6,400 10,551 7,584

5,302

2,111 11,999 20,951

3,606 34,659 72,164

Primary Research: Major Findings

Just over one third of inactive cardholders do not live in
Richland County

The most popular reason for cardholders to not return

to the library is that their schedules are too busy

When asked about purchasing ebooks, the most

popular answer (42 percent) was that the cardholders
never purchased them
Library card inactivity occurred most in the 25-34 years
old age bracket

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?

Analysis
Identified many of the common reasons behind card inactivity, which will go a
long way in helping us develop a campaign that can combat these reasons or
oer solutions to circumvent them.

Richland Library has already begun trying to combat this by putting an emphasis
on online resources and developing a hold program that requires nothing more
than calling ahead and picking up requested materials at the front desk. These
actions boost card activity with minimal eort and are a good foundation for our
campaign.

Richland Library currently does not have a way to capture cardholder data for
people who come to programs. The librarys programs are widely attended and it
is likely that card activity numbers would increase substantially if there was a
way to capture card activity upon entrance to those programs.

36.2 percent of non-users do not currently live in Richland County. Many of the
cardholders actually live in the Charlotte or Charleston areas and have purchased
library cards to gain access to online resources. Although these cardholders may
not be able to come to the library, there are still ways to reach them and get them
involved.

Richland Librarys Walker Local and Family History Center is also popular
with out-of-county cardholders and can be accessed online; according to
Ms. Crick, this is a widely cited reason for out-of-county residents to
purchase a library card.

How Our Research Helped Us

Identified the most common reasons that people
are no longer using the library
Our campaign will make it clear to our demographic that there is more
to Richland Library than just books and outline the many ways to take
!
advantage of the librarys services, despite any personal conflicts

Helped us know our demographic

We have zeroed in on an age range within a broader demographic so
that we may reach them more easily and eectively. We know their
habits, priorities, where they frequent and what devices they use.
We will tailor our message so that it will be meaningful and more likely
to be received. The information gathered will help us reach the nonusers with messages that will get through to them; we can meet them
where they are and share information that is most relevant to their
wants and needs.

Objectives and Strategies

Seeing the YTD data helped outline our objectives

Have 50 current non-users engage in library

card activity with Richland Library within
three months

See a measured increase of 50 online

resources checked out or downloaded

Have one article published by a local media

outlet regarding the organizationss
programs and services

Media Strategy
Monthly online newsletter

Local print organizations

The State

The Columbia Star

Free Times

Panorama

CRM system

Research Problems
Although we were satisfied with the number and
variety of the questions that were asked in the
survey, we still were not able to create them for
ourselves.

If we had thought up an additional set of questions

that had not already been answered, we would not
be able to distribute those questions to the same
public.

Future Suggestions
CRM distributed survey to listserv of non-users
when this becomes possible in December