National Library News June 1999 Vol. 31, no. 6

Canadians, Public Libraries and the Information Highway

Libraries have been centres for learning in the world for many centuries and have existed in Canada since 1606. Modern libraries provide a broad range of services which cover the information, education, research and leisure needs of many individuals and organizations. As such, they are a vital component of the culture and identitfy of most civilizations.

Recent studies have reaffirmed the importance of libraries in the lives of Canadians. People who use libraries do so regularly, as demonstrated by a research project undertaken for the Book and Periodical Council in 1996 (Dividends: the Value of Public Libraries in Canada , 1997). It is, moreover, increasingly apparent that individuals use libraries for many different purposes. This fact becomes even more important to our understanding of the impact of libraries as their role in Canadian society is reassessed in the light of  technological and social change.

In 1997, the Canadian Library Association (CLA) commissioned a study on behalf of an informal consortium of the provincial and territorial libraries, the National Library of Canada, Industry Canada, Association pour l'avancement des sciences et techniques de la documentation, and CLA. One of its key objectives was to provide information on how public libraries are used across the country in the context of the emerging information highway.

The key findings, as documented in the report Canadians, Public Libraries and the Information Highway submitted to the Canadian Library Association by Ekos Research Associates Inc. in October 1998, were

• nearly two in three survey respondents reported having a public library card;
• two in three respondents reported having visited a public library in the past 12 months, with one in five reporting having been at least 12 times;
• respondents visited public libraries an average of 7.7 times in the past year;
• close to four in 10 reported visiting a library in the last week.

While the study did not investigate the reading habits of Canadians per se , a strong link between reading and libraries remains. The report demonstrated the importance of public libraries in promoting recreational reading and literacy, pointing out that the average number of visits to Canadian libraries increased between the 1991 "Reading in Canada" study and the present study from 6.4 to 7.7 times per person.

Public libraries are used for a wide range of activities that goes beyond the borrowing of books and browsing or studying materials in the library. The new Ekos study reports that newer services such as the Internet and on-line databases are used by one in 10 respondents.

Public libraries have embraced the information highway and accept their role in providing access to it for many Canadians. Indeed, LibraryNet, a cooperative venture on the part of of Canada's public libraries, library jurisdictions and agencies, librarians, and Industry Canada, has been established "to encourage the growth of these new roles and to help Canadian libraries connect to the information highway and to one another." The Ekos study demonstrated that Canadians see public libraries, along with schools, as highly appropriate locations for public access sites to the information highway. A recent study commissioned by the Canadian Centre for Management Development and some provincial governments has confirmed the finding.

The role of public libraries is changing as society changes. Technological developments have had a tremendous impact on libraries over the past 25 years. These changes are forcing libraries to investigate how they use technology both to deliver traditional services and to integrate communications technology into the library's role as a gateway between the individual seeking information and the exploding world of information that exists not only in more familiar forms such as books, magazines, audio-visual documents and maps, but also in digital formats available through the information highway.