The library experience: past and present habits in library visits

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come “spontaneously”, meaning perhaps also independently, to the library (15%) [see Table 4-17].

A higher percentage of older young adults who couldn’t remember this first experience were expected. In fact, the passing of time proved to bring along memory faults. 39% of the 15-19-year-old sample turned out not to remember anything on this point, almost twice as much as the 11-14-year-old group [see Table 4-16].

Nonetheless, from the data collected it is apparent that positive experiences with the library abound [see Table 4-18]. Out of the 80 respondents to Question Three, that is, 94% of the total questionnaires returned, only six declared not to remember anything, while 19 to fail to remember. Some of them give as a reason the early age when they did come to the library.⁴

Most answers concentrate on the discovery of materials (44%) [see Table 4-18], and books in particular are depicted as strange objects to be either conquered or carefully examined.

A comparably high percentage considered the discovery of the library materials a joyful experience, while also services and activities, such as storytelling (13%), were named as important features [see Table 4-18].

Very low scored socialization or interaction aspects (4%), which were taken into account largely by female subjects (5 out of 7) [see Table 4-19] – and only in the age group between 11 and 14 years of age [see Table 4-20]. On the other hand, male subjects have shown to be particularly attracted by materials: they score 52%, against a 38% of the female group [see Table 4-19].

The importance of resources is more present in the answers of the 15-19-year-olds, with a 51% of total occurrences in spite of a 43% of the 11-14-year-old sample group [see Table 4-20]. Respondents underlined the possibility of looking “for books with figures”

[190M18], the impact with the “enormous books” [170F14] and the astonishment in seeing the “quantity of books” [188M18].

In the surroundings the presence of resources in the library is also more apparent (with a 49% of ratings) than in the town centre (scoring 9 points lower) [see Table 4-21].

Negative experiences are not as abundant, or perhaps have been simply not reported. As a matter of fact, 31% didn’t answer the correspondent question, and 9% declares to not remember anything negative about their first visit to the library [see Table 4-22]. Quite reassuringly from one side, 40% of respondents declared they didn’t have any negative feelings in that occasion, and, in addition, three of them concluded that they liked everything they found in the library.

Although encouraging, these views are not particularly interesting in searching for critical points in case of an assessment on evaluation and improvement of services.

To this purpose, a more close focus onto the remaining 20% of respondents is worth a note. About the half of them indicated as a negative memory the poor or unfruitful interaction with people, as well as feelings related to personal or situational inadequacy, while a unenthusiastic view about the place is cited by only 3% of respondents.

Very often, the major cause of concern is silence: “Everyone should hush, nobody could make noise” [190M18] is a frequent opinion.⁵

As for the case of positive experiences, socialization aspects were called upon more by female (11%) rather than by male (7%) subjects, particularly over fifteen [see Table 4-23 and 4-24].

An uncomfortable feeling was proved more by younger than older subjects: the 45% of respondents in the 11-14-year-old group and the 29% in the 15-19-year-old sample.

This figure is nonetheless counterbalanced by the absence of answers, which reached the 45% among the 15-19 olds and 26% in the younger sample group [see Table 4-24].

A peculiar aspect is to be emphasised among subjects living in the surroundings, who are more sensitive to the new place, where they often found themselves out of place (12%), compared to their peers residing in the town centre (only 5%). A similar proportion has emerged for socialization aspects, for which residents in the outskirts proved less prepared than town inhabitants [see Table 4-25].

Anyway, the first impression of the library is not the one that counts forever. If asked about the significance of their memories on the first visit to the library, 60% of respondents report to be confident that they have not been conditioned by them [see Table 4-26]. This applies especially to female subjects [see Table 4-27] and to

15-19-52

To correctly evaluate the questionnaire it must be constantly hold that 81% of respondents stated that they are actual library users [see Table 4-30].

Male subjects tend to be non-users – 25% compared to a 75% of declared users – more than females, who show a lower figure in this respect (12% of non-users vs. 88% of users of the library) [see Table 4-31].

Surprisingly, 15-19-year olds declare themselves users in a higher percentage (85%) than the 11-14-year-old group (80%) [see Table 4-32], while no significant variation in the frequency has been discovered between town and surroundings inhabitants [see Table 4-33].

The highest the frequency of the library experience, the likeliest the respondents count themselves among users rather non-users of the institution [see Table 4-34]. Only two subjects admit in this case never to visit the library, comparing to 36 subjects who confess being non-users in answering Question 6 [see Table 4-30 and Table 4-34]. Who are the 34 respondents missing?

This question revealed four non-respondents. Other 16 correspond to the group who affirm going to the library once a year. Furthermore, of the 11 respondents visiting it twice a year, the majority – 8 out of 11 – don’t consider themselves as users. Yet the remaining two of them are to be found in the group of individuals who occasionally go to the library.⁶

Data on frequencies by sex prove the preponderance in the female subjects toward a more regular habit in visiting the library. In fact, 33% of them disclose to go to the library almost once every two weeks, or even more often, whilst male subjects only score 17% of the occurrences in the same categories.

On the opposite, males are more keen on being far from the library for longer periods of time, admitting – in the 42% of cases – that they go and visit it once every three months or even rarely. Female subjects corresponding tallies are about 28% [see Table 4-35].

As it could be envisaged, the highest percentages in low frequencies have been registered among over-14 subjects, thus confirming that the tendency through life is to progressively abandoning the habit of visiting a library [see Table 4-36].

Also from this answer, living in the surroundings proves to be a strong factor to increased irregularity of library visits. The distribution of 41% in the lowest frequency categories – from “once every three months” to “once a year” – is not far from being double as much as the one of the town inhabitants (24%) [see Table 4-37].

Other data collected confirm that subjects living in the centre can go more often to the library than those living in the outskirts. 30% of the first can visit it almost once a month -–against 23% of peers from the outside, a percentage which becomes more significant in the highest frequencies. In fact, while only 6% of the subjects living in the surroundings can visit the library once or twice a week, a round 23% of the town peers have the chance of doing it. Considering higher frequencies, only the latter group affirms to be able to go more than three times a week [see Table 4-37].