Rural and Small Public Libraries

Brian Real, Brian Real

• Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781787432536
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Library & Information Science
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Rural and small public libraries provide invaluable services to their communities. These information institutions operate in areas that, when compared to national averages, have poor broadband accessibility and weaker connection speeds, low home internet adoption rates, higher unemployment rates, and less per capita access to doctors and other healthcare providers. Public libraries help to bridge these divides and help to mitigate the impact of these geographic and socioeconomic disadvantages. However, librarians are only able to do so much when they are funded by limited, primarily local revenues and are not able to achieve economies of scale that come with larger service population bases. Thus, this volume begins by defining the challenges that rural and small libraries face before shifting to an analysis of ways that these obstacles can be overcome or mitigated. Building off of this foundation, the authors explore ideas for enhancing community partnerships and outreach, using rural and small public libraries as centers for local cultural heritage activities, and training rural public librarians to better serve their publics. The authors of this volume bridge the gap between academic research and practical application, creating a volume that will allow rural librarians, trustees, and their allies to argue for greater support and enact change to benefit their service communities.

EXPLORING RURAL PUBLIC LIBRARY ASSETS FOR ASSET-BASED COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

Karen Miller

ABSTRACT

This chapter explores differences in fringe, distant, and remote rural public library assets for asset-based community development (ABCD) and the relationships of those assets to geographic regions, governance structures, and demographics.

The author analyzes 2013 data from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and U.S. Department of Agriculture using nonparametric statistics and data mining random forest supervised classification algorithms.

There are statistically significant differences between fringe, distant, and remote library assets. Unexpectedly, median per capita outlets (along with service hours and staff) increase as distances from urban areas increase. The Southeast region ranks high in unemployment and poverty and low in median household income, which aligns with the Southeast’s low median per capita library expenditures, staff, hours, inventory, and programs. However, the Southeast’s relatively high percentage of rural libraries with at least one staff member with a Master of Library and Information Science promises future asset growth in those libraries. State and federal contributions to Alaska libraries propelled the remote Far West to the number one ranking in median per capita staff, inventory, and programs.

This study is based on IMLS library system-wide data and does not include rural library branches operated by nonrural central libraries.

State and federal contributions to rural libraries increase economic, cultural, and social capital creation in the most remote communities. On a per capita basis, economic capital from state and federal agencies assists small, remote rural libraries in providing infrastructure and services that are more closely aligned with libraries in more populated areas and increases library assets available for ABCD initiatives in otherwise underserved communities.

Even the smallest rural library can contribute to ABCD initiatives by connecting their communities to outside resources and creating new economic, cultural, and social assets.

Analyzing rural public library assets within their geographic, political, and demographic contexts highlights their potential contributions to ABCD initiatives.

Keywords: Rural public libraries; asset-based community development; community development; data mining; supervised classification; random forest decision trees

I. INTRODUCTION

The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) defines “rural” libraries in terms of their distance from urbanized areas or urban clusters. Derived from World Geodetic System 1984 geocoding in partnership with the U.S. Census Bureau, the “Locale,” or urban-centric, code in the annual IMLS Public Library Survey file enables researchers to identify rural libraries (IMLS, 2015a, pp. 17–18). Based on the Locale code in the IMLS 2013 Public Library Data file (IMLS, 2015b), 4,216, or 45%, of the 9,309 public library systems in the United States were classified as “rural.” The Locale code also segments rural libraries into fringe, distant, and remote categories. Table 1 contains the distances from urbanized areas or urban clusters for each category (IMLSa, 2015, p. 18) and shows that the majority (49%) of rural public libraries are in the “distant” rural category, followed by 39% in the “remote” rural category and 12% in the “fringe” rural category.

Table 1. 2013 Rural Public Libraries by Locale (Urban-Centric) Code.

Whether located in a fringe, distant, or remote rural area, each rural library possesses a unique set of assets available for investment in asset-based community development (ABCD) initiatives like those described by Kretzmann and McKnight in Building Communities from the Inside Out (1993). ABCD initiatives build connections between local assets to create new assets that can be used to solve local issues. Working together to achieve shared goals, local individuals, associations, institutions, and businesses use their assets to overcome economic or other constraints while building and strengthening the community. Possessing “rich local institutional assets” (Hildreth, 2007, p. 9), rural public libraries can make important contributions to ABCD initiatives.

II. RESEARCH PROBLEM/QUESTIONS

While the Mehra, Bishop, and Partee study in this volume, “A Gap Analysis of the Perspectives of Small Businesses and Rural Librarians in Tennessee,” adopts the ABCD perspective and a recent dissertation acknowledges the approach (Ginger, 2015), there are few recent studies of rural public libraries conducted from the ABCD perspective, intentionally or otherwise. Furthermore, quantitative studies of rural public library assets predicated on the Kretzmann–McKnight ABCD framework are lacking. To help fill that gap, this study explores the rural public library assets available for investment in ABCD initiatives using an IMLS data set enriched by demographic variables provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). This research seeks to answer the following questions:

Q1: What are the differences in the asset holdings of fringe, distant, and remote rural libraries?

Q2: What are the relationships between fringe, distant, and remote rural public library asset holdings and library service area population size, geographic regions, political (governance) structures, and community demographics?

Analyzing rural public library assets by distance from urbanized areas and clusters and considering those assets within their broader geographic, political, and demographic contexts provides broader insight into the potential contributions of these important local institutions to ABCD initiatives.

III. ASSET-BASED COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

The ABCD approach was developed by John Kretzmann and John McKnight of the Center of Urban Affairs and Policy Research at Northwestern University in the early 1990s. For communities struggling to solve crime, illiteracy, underemployment, and other social issues, the ABCD framework provides an “inside-out,” “glass half full” alternative to “outside-in,” needs-driven, “glass half empty” policies and institutional responses. While outside-in methods to solving community issues treat residents as clients, the inside-out ABCD approach respects and builds on the agency of individuals, local associations, and local institutions. Detailed in their groundbreaking work, Building Communities from the Inside Out (Kretzmann & McKnight, 1993), the ABCD approach has been adopted by a variety of domestic and international communities (see, e.g., Green, 2010, p. 4; Kretzmann & McKnight, 1993, p. 355; Mathie & Cunningham, 2008; Rans & Altman, 2002; Snow, 2001, pp. 72–75), is recognized as an effective community development model by philanthropic organizations (see, e.g., Russell & Nurture Development, 2009, Carnegie UK Trust; Snow, 2001, Blandin Foundation), and has influenced social work praxis (Scales, Streeter, & Cooper, 2014, pp. xvi–xvii). The Asset-Based Community Development Institute, founded at the Northwestern School of Education and Social Policy and now housed at DePaul University’s Irwin W. Steans Center for Community-Based Service Learning & Community Service Studies (https://resources.depaul.edu/abcd-institute/Pages/default.aspx), continues to encourage ABCD initiatives through faculty speeches, workshops, consultations, and publications.

The ABCD framework arose from Kretzmann and McKnight’s rejection of the “institutional” assumption that individual and community well-being derives from institutional systems such as welfare and the infrastructures supporting those institutions (McKnight, 2003, p. 2). In the institutional assumption, local residents are treated as clients whose well-being is determined by the consumption of institutional services. The agency and relationships of citizens and community associations are omitted from the social map of the community under the institutional assumption (p. 2). In contrast, Kretzmann and McKnight’s ABCD approach centers on the agency of citizens and their established community associations in effecting social change. This requires a new map centered on and flowing outward from individuals—individuals and families take center stage in the new map, surrounded by local associations, institutions, and businesses resources (p. 3). Social systems driving the institutional assumption remain on the periphery of the new map, and consumption of institutional resources is directed by citizens rather than by clients (McKnight, 1996, p. 16). Grounded in the new map of social policy centering on the agency of individuals, families, local associations, and local institutions, ABCD initiatives mobilize, exchange, and create economic, cultural, and social capital assets within the community.

IV. ASSETS

In the ABCD paradigm, “Successful communities use the talents of people, the web of associations, the strength of institutions, and their available land, property, and economic power to create new opportunities for themselves. In short, they build on their assets” (Snow, 2001, p. 2; see also Green & Haines, 2012, p. 9). ABCD “is about identifying assets that can help, developing the leadership to mobilize residents, and building the capacity to act in the future” (Snow, 2001, p. 3). Therefore, an ABCD initiative begins with an inventory of all community assets, including individual, associational, and institutional economic, cultural, and social capital assets. Once inventoried, the community works to connect those assets “in ways that multiply their power and effectiveness,” drawing in under- or nonutilized assets as community development projects grow and flourish (Kretzmann & McKnight, 1993, pp. 5–6). ABCD connections build outward from the skills, knowledge, tangible assets, and social networks of individuals to those of local volunteer associations and local institutions, including public libraries and librarians. Once assets are connected, actors build information pathways and identify shared goals.

The ABCD list of economic assets includes: individuals’ skills and work experience, natural resources available for prod...

Table of contents

• Contents
• Introduction: Rural Public Libraries in Academic and Political Contexts
• Rural Libraries and the Human Right to Internet Access
• Rural Public Libraries in America: Continuing and Impending Challenges
• Exploring Rural Public Library Assets for Asset-Based Community Development
• A Gap Analysis of the Perspectives of Small Businesses and Rural Librarians in Tennessee: Developments Toward a Blueprint for a Public Library Small Business Toolkit
• Rural Librarians as Change Agents in the Twenty-First Century: Applying Community Informatics in the Southern and Central Appalachian Region to Further ICT Literacy Training
• Defining Community Archives within Rural South Carolina
• Exhibiting America: Moving Image Archives and Rural or Small Libraries
• Rural and Small Libraries: The Tribal Experience
• Index