Talk:Trends in library usage

Notes made prior to significant update
''The notes below, and the following deletion discussion, were made before a significant update to the page. To comment on the update, please start a new section at the bottom of the page.'' — Preceding unsigned comment added by Libraryowl (talk • contribs) 01:41, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

This article should not exist, and anybody who'd like to take a minute to integrate the information on it into other pages and then delete it would be doing the site a huge favor. 149.130.220.74 (talk) 08:23, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm having a hard time getting my head around this. The article's title is "decline of library usage" and yet it's mostly an original research article [i.e. drawing conclusions on the basis of facts reported] and the public library details do not support the "decline" statement at all. This seems like someone's homework assignment and presents data not supported by the facts it presents. It may be that academic library visits in the US are declining but public library usage is up. Jessamyn (talk) 13:56, 17 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Agreed. Quark1005 (talk) 06:07, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

I also agree. I started to add "citation needed" in various places, and various other repairs, but quickly realized this article is in need of a complete overhaul. For example, consider the sentence "Chain bookstores such as Barnes & Noble and Borders have been very successful and experienced rapid expansion". In fact, Borders (i.e. Borders Group, Inc.) recently closed the last of their stores!


 * Drttm (talk) 20:21, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

I agree that this looks like a term paper or something, and while I encourage high school and college students to contribute to WP (whether as part of their class assignments or not) this one has a thesis statement and thus a POV. Maybe we can harvest some of this and make an article like "Impact of technology on libraries" or something like that? (I noticed the Borders thing too, btw.) KConWiki (talk) 02:04, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

I am starting a major study of library usage for work. My feeling is this article may in fact be entirely wrong. In a few months I will do some big updates to this article. DrTh0r (talk) 21:43, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

The article needs editing for English. If you start reading at "The scope of expert advancement open doors for bookkeepers...." you find incompetent use of language. A bookkeeper is generally an accountant in USA usage. The stilted language suggests someone who tries to write above his abilities to impress a teacher."

Also, the research is dated and sometimes wrong. See the Pew research page https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2016/09/09/library-usage-and-engagement/ for a much more coherent article. Yet this web page is dated 2016. Brent Jones (talk) 14:28, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

New Article
Perhaps someone should make an article about the increase in library usage? There are articles to back that up too. Just a thought. --Olegkagan (talk) 06:29, 30 September 2011 (UTC) (no longer relevant) Olegkagan (talk) 17:57, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Nominated for Deletion
Afd: Nominated for deletion; see Articles for deletion/Decline of library usage. The evidence for this conclusion is scant and many of the citations are outdated. This seems to be a work of unsupported original research. I am not a regular Wikipedia editor, but as comments note above, this page should at least be formally evaluated. Libraryowl (talk) 03:57, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Update 28 July 2013
I have made significant changes to this article that include a broader perspective on library usage and a wealth of new statistics and citations. This page was retitled "trends in library usage," a move that is supported by both the comments above and the recent deletion discussion. As part of these changes I have removed the warnings requesting updates and improvements. I encourage other people who are interested in this topic, including the original author, to continue to work on improving this page. I will also continue to monitor and update this page as new statistics are released and trends clarify. Libraryowl (talk) 18:56, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

International information
This article was mentioned in Public Libraries News with some suggestions for improvement from veteran WP editor & Jisc Wikimedia ambassador Martin Poulter: "What it needs now are more wikilinks or explanations for specialist terms like ‘circulation transactions’, and especially content from a global perspective: it’s very much US-centric now." Libraryowl (talk) 22:25, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Regarding this issue, I have added some reports about UK and Canadian libraries, but the article could still use a going-over by a non-American editor. I don't think I've adequately covered UK library closures, for example. Libraryowl (talk) 04:51, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

"A few" "some" "some libraries"
Where the article reads that "a few" or "some libraries" have done X, it is because there is little statistical information available on how many libraries have done so. For example, while I know of several libraries that have added makerspaces or print-on-demand publishing in recent years, I don't believe any statistics have been collected on how many libraries have done so, how often such things are used, or how valued they are by patrons. I have attempted to provide examples where possible.--Libraryowl (talk) 21:30, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Merge
Per the AfD for "Future of libraries," most of the non-redundant information from that article has been merged here. There is still some work in mysandbox which may be useful or interesting to editors interested in this topic. Libraryowl (talk) 14:47, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Project Library reassessment
Changed the rating from Start to C because of the changes I noticed since the original rating. Still, this is an article that hasn't been touched much for a few years. The data is still fine, but it would be nice to have it more relevant to information up until at least 2016. The very first sentence of the article is outdated by many years and as a result lowers the credibility of the rest of the page. If this was updated nicely, upon another reassessment it might reach B status. A cursory look at the references showed some good research - but again many of them are now outdated or no longer can be used as reference points for the article. S EMMENDINGER  ( talk ) 21:26, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

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