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Hispanic Americans, that were born in the U.S. are much more likely to use the public library than Hispanic immigrants, who make up half of the adult U.S. Hispanic population, according to new research from the Pew Research Center.

On average, 72 percent of Latinos ages 16 and older have visited a public library or a bookmobile at one point in their lives. However, 83 percent of U.S.-born Latinos have visited a public library at some point in their lives, which is closer to the average for white people (83 percent) and black people (80 percent). And only 60 percent of immigrant Latinos report having visited a public library or bookmobile.

The issue may be that immigrant Hispanics find the systems difficult to navigate. Only a third of immigrant Hispanics reported that it would be \"very easy\" to visit a public library. While 60 percent of U.S.-born Hispanics said it would be very easy.

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The recent findings from the Pew Research Center funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates on libraries have been fascinating reading. And now, my youth services friends, it is our turn to have the research spotlight turned on our efforts.

As reported May 1, " the vast majority of parents of minor children — children younger than 18 — feel libraries are very important for their children. That attachment carries over into parents’ own higher-than-average use of a wide range of library services."  (emphasis mine)


In this brief synopsis of findings from the full report parents view libraries as vital to their children's reading and information needs. And - no surprise to us frontliners -these same parents are far more likely to use other library services and to express interest in expanding services and adding tech-related services.

I have had conversations over the years with colleagues in which we express frustration over the lack of support for youth services from our administrations, boards and even our co-workers in other areas of the library.  This is the strongest piece of research we've seen in a while that underscores what we know - parents who use the library are vitally interested in its services not just for kids but for themselves. 

When we see and serve families we are also drawing in these parents for all other adult services as well. These twenty and thirty somethings are a sweet spot demographic that some libraries embrace and some puzzle over. But they are ready for us.

I'll be highlighting this study at my library and in my workshops and presentations and sharing with my colleagues where I work.  I hope you will too.

Powerful stuff.

Thanks to Digital Shift for the heads up.

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On April 20th, Pew Internet and American Life Project released a report on teen mobile phone usage. One of the facts the report revealed is that Teens are becoming more active cell phone users.

They discovered that “72% of all teens – or 88% of teen cell phone users — are text-messagers.”  In 2006, Pew released a similar report that found about 51% of teens were texters. What is suprising is that the average teen texter sends about 50 texts a day or 1,500 texts a month. Some teens even send over 3,000 texts a month. In comparison Korean teens send about 15-20 text messages a day, and they are known worldwide for being heavy cell phone users. Pew also discovered that there are a significant minority of teens who opt to not be heavy texters. About 22% of teens send and receive just 1-10 texts a day, which is close to an adult texters average daily texts. It is estimated that the change in texting patterns is linked to a change in cell phone plans. More family plans offer users unlimited texting which allows these teens to send and receive as many messages as they want. Texting has now become the number 1 method teens use to stay in contact with friends, out ranking social networks, face to face, and calls on their cell or landline phone.

Teens take the cell phone with them everywhere including to school. A majority of teens (62%) say that they can have a cell phone at school but not in class, and another quarter of teens (24%) attend schools that forbid cell phones altogether. However 84% reported taking their phones with them to school  multiple times a week. 60% of these teens say they turn their phones on while at school at least once a day and sometimes several times a day. I was fascinated by these statistics, which seem to say that at least 14% of the schools that forbid cell phones still have teens bring cell phones to school. While distracting during classroom lectures, I’m curious to know how teens are using their cell phones during school. Is texting the new way to pass notes in class? Are teens just using phones during lunch and passing periods or is there use during class as well?

Lastly I found it intriguing that cell phones might be helping to provide internet access to teens who do not currently have internet at home. Surprisingly  21% of teens who do not otherwise go online say they access the internet on their cell phone. When you look at ethnic groups the numbers rise to 35% for Hispanic teens and 44% for African-American teens. 
Below is a list of activities teens reported using their phone to do beyond calling and texting:

• 83% use their phones to take pictures.
• 64% share pictures with others.
• 60% play music on their phones.
• 46% play games on their phones.
• 32% exchange videos on their phones.
• 31% exchange instant messages on their phones.
• 27% go online for general purposes on their phones.
• 23% access social network sites on their phones.
• 21% use email on their phones.
• 11% purchase things via their phones.

Remember none of these statistics relate to teens’ iPod Touch usage, which isn’t considered a cell phone because it lacks the connection to a cellular telephone network. However this is the only distinction that separates an iPhone from an iPod Touch. So these numbers are actually larger for the teen population who frequently use their iPod Touch over wireless networks. 78% of iPod Touch owners

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A few links that have been keeping me from inbox zero for the past few weeks.

• “…the increased popularity of the Internet in America has not been correlated with an overall increase in reported sexual offenses; overall sexual offenses against children have gone steadily down in the last 18 years” Note: this does not say “oh the internet is safe!” It just says that the internet getting more popular doesn’t correlate with sexual offenses against children. More from the Research Advisory Board of the Internet Safety Technical Task Force
• Speaking of Berkman people, I’ll be hanging out in the Boston area over the turkey weekend and likely going to this event that Saturday. Anyone in the area should consider going, it looks like fun.
• Evergreen is gaining traction as an ILS that works even for big/complicated systems. The Traverse Area just went live with their Evergreen implementation. Doesn’t that look nice? More about Michigan’s open source ILS project.
• I’ve been reading more lately. I read Cory Doctorow’s book Content (my review) and think it should be required reading for librarians or anyone else in the various digital content industries. If you’d like a copy, you can read it for free online, or if you’re a librarian or a teacher, you can request a donated copy from the website. I already gave mine away.
• FCC broadband bill passed. This might help Farmer Bob [my generic term for the people over on this side of the digital divide] get broadband.
• Pew Report “When Technology Fails” (and even really great technology sometimes does). The results will likely not surprise the librarians. “15% of tech users were unable to fix their devices” and “48% felt discouraged with the amount of effort needed to fix the problem.”

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