Friday, February 6, 2009

Lecture 3 Response

What differences do you perceive between the two libraries in terms of their resources and services?

What relationship do you see between the demographics and the library resources and services when you compare and contrast two cities in the same state?

115 comments:

  1. Miami Dade Public Library VS. John F. Germany Public Library in Tampa, Florida.

    Differences in Resources/Services:
    -Tampa has more professional and artistic programs.
    -Miami has more cultural programs, tutoring, and citizenship classes.
    -Miami serves a much larger amount of people and has more books/items
    -Miami has a much more information based website, which is helpful for learning more about the library and its services.

    Demographic/Service Relationship

    -The Libraries have many of the same services, but the services/resources in Tampa seem to be more focused on professional individuals. They have more to deal with business and the arts than does the Miami library. I think this is true because Tampa tends to have a more wealthy population. Whereas the Miami population has the most jobs in construction, Tampa's population has more jobs in professional management.

    -Tampa also has a higher amount of individuals with associate, bachelor's, and graduate/professional degrees. Also, more individuals graduated from high school as did Miami.

    CONCLUSION: Tampa caters more towards a smaller, wealthy, professional population whereas Miami caters towards a larger, lower-class population. They both offer internet services and special programs (though they are different in content) but the Miami library has more books/items to offer. Miami also has more items and books borrowed from them than does the Tampa library. I believe this is due to the differences in income, socioeconomic standing, and education levels.

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  2. Chicago Public Library [main branch] vs. Urbana Free Library

    Differences in Reserves and services:
    -Chicago Public Library's main branch has almost 30 times as many public internet terminals as Urbana's free library.
    -Chicago Public Library has many more study rooms and conference/meeting rooms available to the public.
    -Urbana free library's events schedule includes committee meetings for non library related events as well as libray events.

    Demographic/Service Relationship

    Urbana's population is a small fraction of Chicago's population which could explain why it has less public internet terminals.
    Also, Urbana is primarily a college town, with about 40,000 students attending the University of Illinois and having access to campus libraries. The main branch of the Chicago public library has 9 floors of space to hold a bigger collection of books.

    In conclusion, Chicago's greater population and the fact that this library is the main branch of many explains why they have more available services and a total circulation 6 times as great as Urbana's free library.

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  3. New Orleans Public Library, New Orleans Louisiana v. Shreve Memorial Library, Shreveport, LA

    Resources and Services:
    The first difference I noticed between these two libraries is that Shreve has almost two times the per capital income as New Orleans. Most of the income comes from the local governments, not that state or federal government. The amount of books and the circulation per capital at Shreve is over three times the amount at New Orleans. Shreve provided 2,882 and received 3,349 interlibrary loans. New Orleans only provided 748 and received 221 interlibrary loans, and New Orleans serves more people. Subscriptions, videos, and audio materials are all high at the Shreve library.

    Demographic/Services:
    The New Orleans zip code 70112 has two thirds of the population of the Shreveport zip code 71101. New Orleans has a higher asian population and a slightly lower white population. The population of other races are similar. Shreveport has an older population. It very interesting that New Orleans has a higher population with Bachelor's degrees or higher, but poverty is also higher.

    Overall, Shreveport seems to be a wealthier community than New Orleans. The library income and services also reflects this.

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  5. I did my research on the Atlanta, Georgia library system. The county of Fulton has 34 library branches and is one of the largest library systems in Georgia. This allows for several diverse programs to be offered throughout the community; however, after my research, I feel that attention is not dispersed evenly among the branches. I focused on the relationship between the Libraries central headquarters and the Georgia-Hill Branch. Although the demographics for each of these libraries ranges were relatively similar (60% white, 30% African American), the effort the county put into them was not. African-American Art Exhibitions, Wi-Fi, and a Teen section were all offered at the headquarters library but not at the Georgia-Hill branch. The headquarters branch is open 12 hours Monday through Thursday, 9 hours on Fridays and Saturdays, and 4 hours on Sunday. The Georgia-Hill Branch was open noon to 7 on Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays, 10 to 7 on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and not at all on Sundays. These differences in services make it obvious that the Georgia-hill branch is being neglected. Because the demographics among the county of Fulton where generally uniform I expected to find similar programming in all branch libraries but was disappointed. In a county with 185,677 families, even dispersal of programming should be a top priority in order to ensure the education. My research reminded me of Tracie Hall’s description of Libraries separated by funding and programming. The hub of the Fulton Library system could be seen as a white cathedral (even though it’s an ugly shade of brown and really resembles the humanities building) and the Georgia- Hill Branch can be seen as the yellow palace (although it gives off a reject Half Price Book’s vibe). My research leads me to wonder if all branch systems are like this. Although I did not notice any immediate major demographic trends related to the unequal distribution of money among branches, I feel that this was only because of the dense population in Fulton, and the lack of information for a specific libraries range. With further, more specialized research or an anecdotal data study, I’m sure the connection would have arisen because the clear divide among resources is already evident.

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  6. Boston Public Library vs the Public Library of Brookline.

    The only way Brookline and Boston are similar is that they both primarily consist of a white population.

    The minorities in both communities are decidedly in the minority. The Boston umemployment rate is a healthy 5.3% while Brookline is down around 2%. Median income for a family in Boston is $54,463 while Brookline more than doubles this at $121,933! Percentage of college graduates in Boston is 35.6% while that number hovers close to 75% for Brookline!

    So Brookline has almost perfect marks when it comes to education and wealth while Boston trails miserably in the rear. What does Boston have? Size, quantity, and a heck of a lot more people. Did I just say that Boston is larger than Brookline three times? That is how pronounced the difference is. The Brookline Public Library and its two branch libraries weigh in at a paltry 56,000 compared to the 570,000 that the Boston Public Library and its 28 branch libraries serve. Every year the mammoth Boston Public Library System expends almost $31,000,000 in upkeep per year while spends about $3,800,000 a year. However, the citizens of Brookline get more bang for their buck, as Boston spends $54.49 per person while Brookline spends $68.59 per head.

    Because Boston is so much larger, it has more money to throw around, which equals prestigious speakers and prominent authors coming in to talk at their library. Brookline's library events are a little more homegrown and feature local musicians for a more cultured taste and a valentine's day card making workshop for youths.

    To summarize my thoughts: Brookline consists of a much smaller yet wealthier (per person) community than Boston. Both are predominantly white and both have well funded libraries. Brookline is more in keeping with its community by hosting local groups while the Boston region generally hosts well known authors and other important persons.

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  7. Memphis Public Library (Central Vs. South)

    Differences in resources/services:
    - The Central Library has a greater amount of PC's available with internet (119) and they also have wireless internet available for those with their own computers whereas the smaller South Branch only has 19 computers avail and no wireless internet
    - The South Branch has lots of information regarding children's programs whereas they Central Branch does not provide any information about the programs that they offer to children

    Demographic Relations:
    - Both cities have a population of around 50,000, but the area code for South Branch has almost 96% of its population being African American
    - About 79% of people in the Central Library area code have a high school degree compared to 65% in South Branch

    Conclusion: It seems that the Central Branch is a larger library that offers services to a greater population compared to the South Branch. Since the Central Branch serves to a greater population they offer many more services. It also seems like the South Branch is focused on serving families and creating a place for them to regularly.

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  8. Miami vs Tampa
    The Miami library seems to offer a lot more than the Tampa library. For instance, the Miami library offers different jazz programs and they have many works of art in the library. Specific programs include flute music programs, SAT workshops, storytellers for black history month, financial planning workshops and celebrate the 200th birthday of Abe Lincoln. Outreach for this library includes assistant technologies, connections, jump start, mobile library - which is a program that brings library resources to you or schools, project LEAD - adult literacy program, SMART - tutoring in all subject areas and a talking books library. Something noteworthy is that the Miami library won the 2008 national medal for museum and library services, a very prestigious award. Tampa libraries are quite different. For instance, a significant chunk of the event titles are in Spanish. Tampa offers programs like formatting word documents, creating paragraphs, Microsoft excel, baby time, how to e-mail, e-mailing attachments, gardening, and girls circle body image. There are some libraries in the Tampa area that are under construction. This is a good indicator of funding and expansion.
    While both libraries have a variety of programs, Miami's seem more sophisticated. Tampa's programs seem useful and practical. It appears as though the citizens of Miami already have the basics down and are expanding their borders with the finer things in life. However, while Miami seems to have such sophisticated programs they also have an adult literacy program. This makes me wonder if they are really more educated than Tampa or if Miami does not really understand how to fully address the needs of its community, on some level. Obviously they are doing well, winning awards, but are they addressing only the higher part of society and leaving those without basic knowledge of computers behind?
    Miami has a much bigger population than Tampa. In general, Tampa has higher employment percentages. The classes of workers are pretty comparable to echoed. The percent income distribution between the cities is extremely similar. The Tampa area has about $10,000 higher median family income. The mean earnings in Tampa is about $15,000 higher. Miami has 6% more families with incomes below the poverty line. The 4,5 and 6 bedrooms are the most owned in Tampa while the 2,3 and 4 bedroom homes are the most owned. Tampa has a 6% higher white population while Miami has a 4% higher black population. Of the population 25 years and older, 67.9% of Miami citizens have graduated high school and beyond compared with the 85.1% of Tampa. In Tampa, 24.1% of the population speak a language other than English in the household as compared with 67.9% in Miami. 9.6% of Tampa speaks English less than very well compared with 34.7% of Miami.

    Solely examining the libraries it appears that Miami is the wealthier community. Taking a look at some of the demographics, Tampa appears to be the wealthier, more educated community. What seems to be happening is that Tampa is continually trying to take care of those less educated through the practical and basic program and web programs. Whereas Miami is trying to engage the community is art, music and storytelling. While Miami has a higher percent of non-English, Tampa seems to be more catering to the non-English speaking community. Overall, Tampa is creating a diverse set of programs for all of it citizens and Miami libraries seem to cater to a few programs to the lower class in Miami and take for granted that people know how to use Microsoft programs as well as the Internet.

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  9. Chicago Public Library vs. Urbana Free Library

    Reserves/Services:
    - CPL has 77 branch libraries, UFL does not have any.
    - CPL has 1500 public internet terminals, UFL has 53.
    - CPL has 4.9 million books and serial volumes, compared to UFL's 215,000.
    - CPL has a total circulation of 6.7 million, UFL's circulation is 687,000.

    Demographic relationship:
    - Chicago is obviously one of the most populous cities in the country. For that reason, it will attract more visitors than most libraries, regardless of the social factions. Educated as well as non-educated members of the community visit the Chicago Public Library for its resources and its non-threatening nature as a public library.
    - The Urbana Free Library is hosting a smaller community. However, the library is used regularly because it is on a college campus. U of I has 40,000 students, which helps its circulation because of the educated members' usage of library materials. Therefore, it is mainly because of city population differences that Urbana's library has less circulation than Chicago's Public Library.

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  10. I did my research on the Boston Public Library and the Public Library of Brookline. Boston has one central library and 28 branch libraries, while Brookline only has two branch libraries. Boston has 559 public internet terminals and Brookline has 62. The legal service area population is 569,165 for Boston and 56,188 for Brookline. Boston has 494 staff members and Brookline has 51. The total income of the Boston Public Library is $35,190,453 and the total income of the Public Library of Brookline is $3,145,326. Boston has a collection of 8,539,059 books and serial volumes and a total circulation of 2,419,145. Brookline has a collection of 335,675 books and serial volumes and a total circulation of 1,104,272. Although the population of Brookline is less than a tenth of that of Boston’s, the total circulation is nearly half that of Boston's.
    In both communities the distribution of race is proportional. Brookline has a a much larger population of people older than 45. Brookline has programs for all ages, but especially for seniors which might explain high numbers of circulation. The programs at the Boston Public Library are geared more towards kids and younger adults. Brookline has a larger percent of people with higher education than Boston does, but Boston does have more schools and even had universities.
    Both libraries fit their respected communities well. The libraries are used for different reasons, but both are used frequently by the population.

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  11. Enoch Pratt Free Public Library, Baltimore vs. Houston Public Library, Houston

    Demographics:
    Houston:
    -local zip code population 13,289
    -median family income ~80,000

    Baltimore:
    -local zip code population 15,097
    -median familiy income ~21,000

    Services:
    Houston:
    -2,055,300 service population
    -3.7 million in collection
    -5.8 million total circulation
    -31,000 total ILLs
    -7,987 hours open per year

    Baltimore:
    -633,100 service population
    -2.7 million in collection
    -1.3 total circulation
    -50,000 total ILLs
    -2,881 hours open per year

    Both of these libraries have impressive and helpful websites. Houston Public Library (HPL) shows no surprises with the extent of its collection, the average median income in Houston is much higher than the national median. This gives the library much higher fundiing than Baltimore's library whose population has a median income much lower than the national median. Despite the lack of funding for Enoch Pratt Library in Baltimore, there are still many services and programs offered by the library. The up-to-date website shows many African American History month events as well as many other lectures and shows scheduled for this month. Houston Public Library has 31,000 ILLs annually which is surprisingly well short of Baltimore's 50,000 ILLs per year. Although the Baltimore building may have a much smaller collection than HPL, they make up for it with their website services, number of programs, and ILL services.

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  12. New York City Vs. Chappaqua

    New York City is a bustling metropolis and the largest city in the world. Chappaqua is a wealthy suburb of the New York.
    New York City has a staggering service population of 3,313,573, it is comprised of 87 branches and 1 central library spread across the 5 boroughs it has a total of 2,328 internet terminals. The library has a circulation of 15,710,007 and had 13,842,278 visits.
    Located in Westchester Chappaqua public libraries, based in the public school system, had a service population of 16,074, it has 15 internet terminals, a circulation of 402,836 and it got 195,203 visits.
    Just doing some quick math it seems that those in Chappaqua get better use out of there system as the per capita breaks down to 25 books taken out per person as opposed to 5 in New York City. They also have a computer terminal for every 1000 people as opposed to 1500 for New York. This is frankly unsurprising when looking at the economic characteristics for each place, New York City's median income is 47,581 while Chappaqua's is 163,201. Chappaqua is also 91.8% white while New York is 44.1% white, also almost 80% of Chappaqua has at least a Bachelors Degree while 32% have one in New York City. While the scales of these two library systems are completely different, it seems that a larger percentage of people are able to take advantage of the library system as opposed to New York, and I think it's fairly clear that it is based on wealth, if not ethnic and social differences.

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  13. I compared two pretty different metropolitan areas, Boston and Newark. Boston is of course larger than Newark (which only has a population of 300,000), but is also considerably more wealthy. Newark is a very diverse city with a fairly high % of the population below the poverty level.

    Rather than just list the differing statistics of each city and their respective library systems, I just want to focus on one statistic: the average library visits per year per capita. Now it's obvious that the Boston Public Library system has a larger collection of Books (over 7 million compared to over 1 million in Newark), but the average person also visits the library almost 7 times per year compared to under 2 times per year in Newark.

    The question this raises to me is the following: Is this disparity caused by the difference in income/collection of books, or is it the other way around? I think we're always so quick to say that people would visit libraries more often if they had a larger collection of books, VHS tapes, etc. But from a city and libraries perspective, would they take the gamble to increase their collection (costing 100,000's even millions of dollars), to hope that the average citizen goes to the library more often? I feel like this "problem" can't really be solved and is more a matter of opinion.

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  14. Memphis vs. Knoxville Tennessee
    Both cities are in the top three largest in Tennessee.
    When comparing population and city characteristics I took data only within the city limits, not the whole urban area. All data was obtained from the 2000 Census.
    Memphis has a population of 650,100, with majority African American residents (61.4%) and the next largest race being white (34%). Hispanic at 3.0% all other races under that. Population 25 and older is 398,824, with 76.4% with HS diploma, and 20.9% having a bachelors degree.
    Knoxville had a city population of 173,890 with 79% white and 16.2 black. All other races under 2%. Population 25 and over is 110,317 with 78.4% with HS diploma and 24.6% with bachelor's degree.
    Both cities were close for household income with Knoxville being slightly lower, family income was virtually equal, per capita income and families and individuals below poverty was very close across both cities.
    Wikipedia mentioned a crime section for Memphis that put the city in the top 4 in the country for crime for cities over 500,000 people.

    Library stats for Knoxville:
    20 total outlets
    Income: $10.6 million per capita: $27.81
    Internet: 228 terminals
    collection expenditures: $893,269 per capita: $2.33
    collection: 975,355 per capita: 2.55
    Visits per year: 1.6 mill per capita: 4.17
    circulation per year: 2.3 mill per capita: 6.20

    Library Stats for Memphis:
    22 total outlets
    Income: $19.7 million per capita: $22.36
    Internet: 431 terminals
    collection expenditures: $2.5 mill per capita: $2.89
    collection: 1.3 mill per capita: 1.45
    Visits per year: 3.2 mill per capita: 3.66
    circulation per year: 2.7 mill per capita: 3.12

    It appears that Memphis has a larger total collection (less per capita) for the same number of libraries and higher per capita expenditure, but with a larger population less visits (even with more internet terminals) and circulation per capita. Both libraries and pretty well funded and have a lot of resources for their populations, but the Memphis community members visit their libraries less.

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  15. I compared the libraries in Houston, TX and Austin, TX. Both of the cities seem to have similar census data except for income levels. It seems that people in Austin, TX are a little more wealthier then people in Houston, TX. Both Libraries seem to offer many different services such as both libraries offer tutoring, computer training and internet access. Although they both seem to have the same services it seems as if the Houston library has more services for children even though they both have about the same population of children. This is also shown in that the circulation for children's material is much greater in Houston then in Austin. Also in general Houston's circulation is much greater then Austin's. Both libraries who consists of a mostly white population but there is also a number of spanish speaking people as well. Both libraries provide services for people who speak spanish. It was hard to contrast these different libraries because they seemed to be very similar in both census data and library statistics.

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  16. Boston v. Brookline (Massachusetts)

    Boston is a city of 590,000 with a diverse population: 54.5 % white; 25.3 % black; 7.5% Asian. The median household income is $39,629, below the national average. Education-wise, 78.9% have a high school degree or higher; 35.6% have a bachelors degree or higher.

    Brookline is significantly smaller, with a less-diverse population of about 26,000. 83% are White; only 3% are Black. The median household income in Brookline is $73,197. Only 2.8% families live below poverty level. The education level is high; 96.5% of those 25+ have a high school degree or higher; 75.2% have a bachelor’s degree or higher.

    With library resources, the Boston library with a larger service area has many more branches - 28 compared to Brookline's 2. Brookline employs 18 certified librarians to Boston's 131. The funding is significantly different between the two with Brookline netting about 10% of the total from Boston. Something that stood out to me was that Brookline received no federal funding for their library while Boston had about $2.7 million (true, a small portion of their budget). Nearly all of the Brookline budget is local, with less than $1 million coming from the state and other sources. Boston draws from a larger range of funding, understandable because of the wider reach of the library system and its branches. Boston funding per capita is about $10 higher than Brookline.

    Boston offers many more books per capita, nearly double Brookline but has noticably lower circulation - 4.27 per capita as compared to Brookline's 19.73 per capita.

    The two are different, certainly, and the funding stood out to me the most. Although the resources and scale of the Boston system is much larger, as I expected, the Brookline system has much higher numbers so far as library visits, circulation and even interlibrary loans. It seems to all play into the concepts we discussed in lecture regarding the levels of education present and the use of library facilities.

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  17. Chicago Public VS Newark Public

    These two cities are both among the top of the largest populated cities in the world. Chicago is 3rd and Newark is 64th. Both of these cities have very diverse people and have a large supply of people from many different ethnic backgrounds. Each city has its share of a cold winter and a fairly warm summer. Newark has a problem with poverty. Chicago has its fair share of people below the poverty line but not as bad as Newark. The 2 are not so similar when it comes to the libraries though. Chicago has 77 branches to Newark's 10. One of the biggest differences between the 2 is the income, Chicago has a total income of $90,988,539 while Newark only has a total income of $16,254,793. Both get most of their money from the local level. Chicago has a book collection of 4,896,854, subscriptions of 18,354, and audio material at 382,890. IN the same categories Newark's collections are 1,610,344 in books, 1,318 in subscriptions, and 12,019 in audio materials. The interesting statistic found was about interlibrary loans. Newark provides more with a number of 11,927 then Chicago does with 8,043.

    It is clear that Chicago is just a step ahead of Newark in almost every category. It is simply bigger, and has way more income and a collection then Newark. This puts a bind on Newark, because it is such a big city, but the money that they are exposed to is no where near the number Chicago is.

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  18. Chicago Public Library vs. Urbana Free Library



    Reserves/Services:

    - The Chicago Public Library has 77 branch libraries; The Urbana Free Library has only one central location.
    
- The Chicago Public Library has 1500 public internet terminals; The Urbana Free Library has 53 in total.
    
- The Chicago Public Library has 4.9 million books and serial volumes; while he Urbana Free Library only has 215,000.

    - The Chicago Public Library has a total circulation of more than 6.7 million; Compared to the Urbana Free Library circulation of about 690,000.



    Demographic relationship:
    Chicago is one of the most populous cities in the nation. Because of this, the CPL has the funds for numerous resources. With the renovations of the main library, the CPL has also become a tourist attraction. The CPL also attracts people from all socioeconomic, race, and ethnic backgrounds. The Urbana Free Library is situated in a city of less than 40,000. Because of its small population, additional branches are not necessary. Urbana is also home to the University of Illinois, which has many resources itself. Since the University has its own library system, students have no need to use the Urbana Free Library. This is apparent in the lack of internet terminals available and the low circulation (compared to the CPL).

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  19. Comparing the Detroit Public Library and the Ann Arbor Public Library:

    On the libraries:
    -The population served by Ann Arbor's Library is about 1/9 of the population that the Detroit Public Library serves--about 155,611 compared to 951,270.
    -However, Ann Arbor's total income is a little under half of Detroit's, at 13,822,254 compared to Detroit's 35,012,987
    -The total circulation and library visits of Ann Arbor's library is about 1/3 of Detroit's.
    -The amount of books it holds is about half of Detroit's
    -I found it interesting that the circulation of children's materials at Ann Arbor's library was more than double the circulation at Detroit's, at 1,003,832 versus Detroit's 411,620.

    On the cities:
    -Ann Arbor is a college town, home to the University of Michigan, while Detroit is a large urban city, with a lot more poverty.
    -69.39% of Ann Arbor's population has a Bachelor's degree, compared to 6.8% in Detroit
    -The median family income in Ann Arbor is $46, 299 compared to Detroit's $29,526.
    -10% less of Ann Arbor's population is below the poverty line, compared to Detroit.

    Conclusion:
    Because Ann Arbor is a much more educated city than Detroit, it explains why, even though its population is much smaller, that Ann Arbor's circulation of library materials and library visits is more than one would imagine.
    -It also explains why more than 1 million children's materials are in circulation, compared to around 400,000 in Detroit--since parents have a high education, they're more likely to want their kids reading early and frequently.

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  20. Newark, NJ vs. Millburn, NJ

    I compared Newark, NJ and Millburn, NJ. Newark was a much larger city than Millburn, and so had much more diversity across the board. Yet, despite the vast difference in population sizes, there was about an equal number of people in Newark that had a graduate or professional degree as there was in Millburn. Also, the median family income in Millburn was at least three times that of the median family income in Newark.

    The Newark Public Library had a comparable circulation to that of the Millburn Public Library, but the Newark Public Library had almost twice the number of visits. Now, the Newark Public Library had a much higher income than that of the Millburn Public Library, but the Newark Public Library spends only half the amount per capita that Millburn does.

    These comparisons were the ones that jumped out at me as being the largest. Also, they reminded me last week’s in-class lecture, of the comparison of Camden and Princeton. Newark and Millburn seemed to mirror many of the characteristics of those two cities. To me, it seems that places with residents of higher socioeconomic brackets tend to have libraries with higher incomes, but those are libraries that are used less frequently. This no doubt stems from the fact that places with lower socioeconomic residents probably have less access to technology like computers. The library would then become the place to go to access such technology. That would explain why Newark and Millburn have the same amount of circulation of materials, but Newark has twice the number of visits.

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  21. New York Public Library (10016) vs. Memphis Public Library and Information Center (38111)

    Demographics:
    New York Public Library's most common segments:
    -Bohemian Mix
    -Money and Brains
    -Urban Achievers
    -Urban Elders
    -Young Digerati

    Memphis Public Library and Information Center's most common segments:
    -Big City Blues
    -City Roots
    -Low-rise Living
    -Multi-culti Mosaic
    -Suburban Pioneers

    Resources and Services:

    The New York Public Library services 3,313, 573 people while the Memphis Public Library services only 906,178 people. The New York library has 2,782 staff members, and the Memphis library has 395. This roughly means that every one staff member in New York is responsible for over 1,000 people, while in Memphis each staff member is responsible for over 2,000 people. In New York, the amount of income per capita the library makes is $71.15, while in Memphis it is $22.36. As far as expenditures, New York spends $67.80 per capita, while Memphis spends $24.65. In terms of collections, the New York library has 20,280,526 books and the Memphis library only has 1,281,151 books.

    The differences between these two libraries can be clearly seen in the demographics alone. The most common segments in the New York Public Library consist of middle and upper class families, while the Memphis Library consists of lower-middle class to low class families. The differences can also be seen in the ratio of the staff to the population served. Each employee in Memphis needs to serve over two times the amount of people that an employee in New York must serve. Another interesting fact about the staffing of these two libraries is that the New York library has no unaccredited librarians, while the Memphis library has 50, only 8 less than the number of accredited librarians. The New York library receives more income than their overall expenditures. Memphis, however, spends more money than they take in annually. Finally, the New York library has nearly 20 times more books than the Memphis library has. This is strange because the population difference is not nearly 20 times.

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  22. I compared the Fulton Public Library, Central Branch in downtown Atlanta to the Sue-Kellogg Branch in Stone Mountain, GA.

    Atlanta's population was 416,474 in the year 2000 compared to Stone Mountain's population of 7,145. Atlanta is made up of 33% White, 61% Black, .2% American Indian, and 4.5% Hispanic people. With 6.6% of people being foreign born. 24.4% of people are below poverty level. They had a median income of $34,770 with a median family income of $37,231. Stone Mountain is made up of 24.5% White, 69% Black, 1.96% Asian, and 4% Hispanic people. 11.5% of people are below the poverty level. The median income is $38,603 with an average family income of $40,888.

    The central library branch in Atlanta is made up of six floors compared to the one level building the Stone Mountain library has. Both libraries have events for the community but Stone Mountain's events are focused really only to children, such as Preschool readings and arts and crafts. Both libraries have websites, but the Sue-Kellogg Branch website has limited information compared to the other library branches in Dekalb county (where Stone Mountain is located). The Fulton Public library central branch in Atlanta has lots of information on it, including directions for varies parts of Atlanta. The hours for the Sue-Kellogg Branch were: Sunday: closed, Monday-Wednesday: 10AM-8PM. Thursday - Saturday: 10AM-5PM. The hours of the Fulton Public Library Central Branch were: Sunday: 2-6PM, Monday-Thursday: 9AM-9PM, and Friday-Saturday: 9AM-6PM.

    Because the Sue-Kellogg Library had such limited information I used the Dekalb County Public Library Branch and compared it to the Fulton County Public Library branch. Dekalb had 22 branches and no bookmobiles, where Fulton had 33 branches and 1 bookmobile. Fulton had over twice as many internet terminals and a staff of almost 100 more individuals. Dekalb had 3,153,749 library visits where Fulton had 2,942,912. Fulton also had less Inter-library loans provided with only 600, compared to Dekalbs 1,131.

    I think the Fulton Libraries have more services and materials compared to the Dekalb libraries, but the Dekalb libraries are used more. Maybe Fulton has more because they are in such a large city (Atlanta) compared to the very small Stone Mountain, so they get more money through taxes and donations.

    The cities had similar demographics, but the median income was higher in Stone Mountain. The main difference between these cities was the number of people. The Fulton Public library offered a lot more services to a wider range of individuals than the Stone Mountain Library and had longer hours, this is probably because it is right downtown Atlanta and the library needs to service more people.

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  23. I compared the Atlanta Fulton Public Library System with the Boston Public Library System. Below are some of the data that best represent the communities as well as the library’s place in each.

    General characteristics

    Atlanta (30303)
    -Total population (in zipcode): 3,744
    -Median family income (in zipcode): $17,171
    -Associate, bachelor’s, or graduate degree attainment (Pop. 25 years and over): 18.1%

    Boston (02116)
    -Total population (in zipcode): 19,682
    -Median family income (in zipcode): $99,853
    -Associate, bachelor’s, or graduate degree attainment (Pop. 25 years and over): 73.5%

    Library Info

    Atlanta Fulton Public Library System (AFPL)
    -Legal Service Area Population: 786,727
    -1 central library, 30 branches
    -Total staff: 314
    -Total income per year: $31,850,529
    -Total circulation per year: 3,357,105
    -Circulation of children’s materials: 1,453,275
    -ILL provided: 600
    -ILL received: 1,000

    Boston Public Library (BPL)
    -Legal Service Area Population: 569,165
    -1 central library, 28 branches
    -Total staff: 494.48
    -Total income per year: $35,190,453
    -Total circulation per year: 2,419,145
    -Circulation of children’s materials: 708,892
    -ILL provided: 38,958
    -ILL received: 11,033

    Both library systems have websites that are easy to navigate. The social background of each community can be seen in the types of events that are advertised at each. The AFPL targets mostly the African American community with its events, while the first four talks listed on the BPL website are given by older, white males. The legal service area population of the AFPL is about 30% larger than that of the BPL, but the total yearly income does not follow that trend. The AFPL receives about $4 million less per year than the BPL. Another disparity is the circulation of children’s materials, which is generally representative of the education level of the two communities. Finally, the BPL’s ILL services are used much more often than the AFPL’s, which relates back to the point that Prof. Whitmire made in lecture last week.

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  24. I compared the Atlanta Fulton Public Library to the Stone Mountain Sue Kellogg Branch, both in the area of Atlanta, GA.
    The demograpihcs of the two areas have both similarities and differences. Both Stone Mounatin and Atlanta have larger populations of African-Americans, followed by whites and Hispanics. They also both have a majority of residents in the 25-44 age range, however, Stone Mountain also had a fairly high percentage of children compared to Atlanta. Both communities are made up of mostly family households, although the Atlanta neighborhood is much more economically challenged, with median family income around $17,200 to compared to the $40,900 average for Stone Mt. In terms of education, Stone Mt. has much higher percentages of college attendance and obtainment of college degrees compared to Atlanta, where the majority of people complete some high school, high school, or some college. Although the ethnic and racial demographics are very similar, there are large differences in education and income between the two neighborhoods.
    I researched the Peachtree Branch of the Atlanta Fulton Public Library, located 2 miles from the Atlanta zip code, 30303. The Peachtree Branch has less availability compared to Stone Mountain's Sue Kellogg Branch. The Peachtree Branch offers far less activities than the Sue Kellogg Branch. Peachtree has a few afterschool and preschool activities for kids, and yoga classes. Sue Kellogg has preschool and afterschool activities as well, and also offers ESL classes, book talks, computer classes, movies and music, and a chess club. I found this disturbing as the Sue Kellogg branch offers ESl and computer classes, but Peachtree does not have these, and Peachtree is in an area of lower economic and education status, where residents may need this technology more. Since the only data for circulation, visits, and other library statistics were only available at the county level, I examined the county library data for Dekalb County (Stone Mountain area) and Fulton County (30303 area). However, the circulation, service population, and visits were very close to each other, no countywide differences can be noted. However, data based on the branch library could be much more useful in determining gaps between services and accessibility to information, as we can already see some differences in services provided and availability between the two branch libraries.

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  25. Boston Public Library vs Brookline Library

    Resources and Services:
    The first thing that stands out between the two is the size of each. The service area population for Brookline is about an eleventh the size for Boston. This translates to a collection size of nearly 9 million books in Boston to only 335,000 for Brookline. This being said the number of library visits per capita is twice as much for Brookline. Looking at each of the libraries websites, the Boston Public Library has a much more robust database and because of the size, obviously offers more resources and services. The Brookline Library website is much simpler, but still has a good deal of information, is easily navigable, and looks to provide many of the same services such as book groups, exhibits, children's programs and the like.

    Demographic relationships:
    In terms of demographics, Brookline and Boston are very similar. The population percentage of whites in Brookline is 83.3% and similarly high in Boston. According to the census information both areas have a population with a bachelor's degree or higher above 75%. The mean income level for Boston is $60k, which is still a great deal above the national average, while Brookline's mean income is above $100k. From past discussion, this might indicate that the Brookline population is less likely to use their library, since library use statistically drops off with higher income levels. Both libraries seem to cater to the majority demographics in their respective areas, which in this case is whites with higher education levels.

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  26. I compared the Boston Public Library with the Memphis Public Library. There are some interesting differences between the two libraries respective resources and services. For one, the Boston Public Library had art exhibits and multiple guest speakers coming to the library. The Memphis Public Library did not have quite as many events but it did have a scheduled concert series with the Memphis Symphony Orchestra. The only way I found out about this, however, was by looking for a while for the correct link which brings me to the web site layouts. Boston Public Library has a very colorful, well designed layout whereas Memphis Public Library has a very basic look with not the easiest navigation. This difficulty in navigation also made it difficult for me to find any of the resources and services offered by MPL but I was able to encounter them very quickly with BPL.

    For the two cities in the same state, I chose Boston and Plymouth Massachusetts. Each city has a lot of history and the community's pride in its own history is evident. They do have some striking demographic differences however:

    Percent of population that is Caucasian:
    Plymouth: 94.9% Boston: 73.4%

    Plymouth has a population over twice the size of the Boston area code 02116 yet has about the same number of individuals living in poverty. Even with such a similarity in poverty level, the median income in Plymouth is 1/3 that of Boston.

    Plymouth house values are about 1/4 of the house values in Boston.

    These are just many of some interesting differences but the libraries were fairly similar. The Plymouth Public Library was smaller and served a larger population but both it and the BPL offered a lot of the same resources and services such as youth programs, conference centers, etc.

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  27. Chicago Public Library (60605) vs. The Urbana Free Library (61801)

    Differences in resources and services

    Chicago Public Library
    Income
    * Total income $90,988,539
    * From local $80,854,751
    * From state $8,470,297
    Services
    * Total Circulation 6,746,11
    * Circulation of Children's Materials 2,617,312

    The Urbana Free Library
    * Total Income $2,417,946
    * From local $2,116,827
    * From state $118,014
    Services
    * Total circulations 687,380
    * Circulation of Children's Materials 178,084

    Demographics

    Chicago is the third biggest city in the world and because of its immigrant population, Chicago has cultural/racial/ethnic diverse. Since the city is consisting of variety of people, the characteristic of this area cannot be defined to one. According to 2000 census, nearly 30% of household have children under the age 18 living together.
    Urbana is the city where the University of Illinois is located and the population of student is almost equal to the population of city itself. Majority of 67% in whole population is white and 15% is African American and about 20% of household have children under 18.

    Conclusion

    Both of libraries are highly rely on the income from the local, however, Urbana Free Library's income per capita is as twice as much of Chicago Public Library. Although scale of UFL( Urbana Free Library) is relatively smaller than CPL(Chicago Public Library) because of its population, the number of total circulation per capita was almost nine times more than CPL's number. Total circulation of children materiel also shows high frequency in using library. However, it is uncertain to make a conclusion with that information because UFL has no branch library while CPL has 77 branch libraries. In the other words, branch libraries of CPL could be an alternative for people who cannot easily reach the main library and it might have given effect on the number of visiting or the number of circulation.

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  28. I was somewhat surprised at my findings. I compared the Dallas, TX library branch with that of the Austin Texas library branch. The two cities aren't drastically different. Those in Dallas make, on average, a salary of 37,628. About 70% of residents have a high school diploma while only a little under 30% have a beachelor's degree. The community is about 50% white, 26% black, and 35 oercent hispanic. Only 17% of the population is below the poverty line.
    Austin isn't too much different. Those in Austin make about 42,689 (about 5,000 more than those in Dallas). *3% are high school graduates while 40% have a bachelors degree. 65% of residents are white, 10% are black, and 30% are hispanic. Only 14.4 percent of residents are below the poverty line.
    From what I have inferred from the class readings, and judging that communities that have more money (and whose residents make more, it wuld be my guess that they would typically have a more advanced library system. This would lead me to believe that the library branch in Austin (where the residents make more money, and less fall below the poverty line) would have a better library branch, in terms of money and circulation. Interestingly enough, it was the library branch in Dallas that had more income, expenditures, and circulation.
    In terms of the digital divide, I thought it was interesting that both library branches were almost tied in the numbers concerning internet access. I would also have guessed that Dallas, with less money, would not provide the same accomidations and would leave its residents somewhat behing. This leads me to believe that technology and the internet, is playing an increasing role of importance in the lives of both the rich and the poor. It is crossing the lines of poverty, and truely becoming something that is not only demanded, but expected.

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  29. I was somewhat surprised at my findings. I compared the Dallas, TX library branch with that of the Austin Texas library branch. The two cities aren't drastically different. Those in Dallas make, on average, a salary of 37,628. About 70% of residents have a high school diploma while only a little under 30% have a beachelor's degree. The community is about 50% white, 26% black, and 35 oercent hispanic. Only 17% of the population is below the poverty line.
    Austin isn't too much different. Those in Austin make about 42,689 (about 5,000 more than those in Dallas). *3% are high school graduates while 40% have a bachelors degree. 65% of residents are white, 10% are black, and 30% are hispanic. Only 14.4 percent of residents are below the poverty line.
    From what I have inferred from the class readings, and judging that communities that have more money (and whose residents make more, it wuld be my guess that they would typically have a more advanced library system. This would lead me to believe that the library branch in Austin (where the residents make more money, and less fall below the poverty line) would have a better library branch, in terms of money and circulation. Interestingly enough, it was the library branch in Dallas that had more income, expenditures, and circulation.
    In terms of the digital divide, I thought it was interesting that both library branches were almost tied in the numbers concerning internet access. I would also have guessed that Dallas, with less money, would not provide the same accomidations and would leave its residents somewhat behing. This leads me to believe that technology and the internet, is playing an increasing role of importance in the lives of both the rich and the poor. It is crossing the lines of poverty, and truely becoming something that is not only demanded, but expected.

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  30. The two libraries I chose to compare were Chicago Public Library (Chicago, IL) and Urbana Free Public Library (Urbana, IL). By looking at the data from the two libraries, it can be seen that the Chicago Public Library as a significantly higher number of services than the Urbana Free Public Library does. However, it has to be taken into account that the library in Chicago 77 branch libraries while in Urbana there is only one library, which would explain why there would be more resources in Chicago. With that being said, there is also more library circulations at the Chicago Public Library then there is in the Urbana Free Public Library.

    Since Chicago has a larger population than Urbana, their library gets more local and state funding than Urbana does, thus giving them more money to spend on resources. Also, since there are more people in the city of Chicago, they need to have more resources to serve a more diverse population than Urbana has.

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  31. Atlanta Fulton Public Library vs. Sue Kellogg Library (Stone Mountain)

    I found it hard to do the Atlanta Public Library system as a whole, so I narrowed it down to the center on One Margaret to work better with the Sue Kellogg Library as it was just one library and not a whole chain.

    The Fulton Public Library was built around 1980 and has had continuous updates. It is five stories, includes an art gallery, music program, story time, computer labs, meeting rooms, foreign language programs and ESL programs, volunteer offices and much, much more. Their website was neatly laid out and showed exactly how much opportunity and activities they had to offer. When I did research on what types of people were in the area I got (in order from highest to lowest) Low-Rise Living, Big City Blues, Urban Elders, Urban Achievers and Bohemian Mix. Mostly, the incomes were lower-middle and a modest education with a large mix in the population, African Americans being the highest. The library does a good job of reaching the community, as it has a lot of African American art and classes on history for the month of February and also a lot of bilingual classes.

    The Stone Mountain library was built in 1964. The website was nice and easy to access, although not as flashy as Fulton. They have a few meeting and study rooms, arts and crafts, chess club, voter registration, internet access, adult learning, DVD's and reference databases. The population, again from largest to smallest, goes: New Beginnings, Blue-Chip Blues, Young Influentials, Home Sweet Home, and Kids and Cul-de-sacs. The library is mostly geared to elementary school kids with the activities on their events calender and the families tend to be more upper-middle class. The population is also mostly African American, although I didn't see anything that led me to believe they were doing something special for Black Heritage Month.

    Both libraries seemed to be in good condition and well working part of the neighborhood. However, the Fulton library seemed to be reaching out to the community more for all ages rather than just elementary school kids. They had more activities and a larger building. This most likely had to do with the fact that the Fulton library is the headquarters and receives a lot of visits due to the high population. It also has reached out a lot more effectively. This could be due to the fact that the people it helps are lower income, so they don't have the money to buy computers or books. The Susan Kellogg library is nice too, but it is not so involved with the community. This may have to do with it being a much smaller library and part of a branch and also the fact that many of the families that use the library can afford their own computers and books. This would cause the library to not get as much "business" per se.

    I found it really interesting to see how demographics of the people living around the library really affects how the library is being used and how high the demand for it is. The higher the demand on the library, the better it seems to be, but it also tends to have costumers that are lower on the social scale.

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  32. Los Angeles Public Library vs. Palos Verde

    Differences in resources/services:
    -The Los Angeles Public Library has more books and serial volumes as well as videos and audio materials than the Palos Verde Estates Library.
    -The LA Public Library gets almost 20 times more people to visit each year than the Palos Verde Estates library.
    -With regards to children services, the LA public library has a higher attendance rate and materials than the Palos Verde Estates libray.

    Demographic Relations:
    -The city of Los Angeles is the 2nd most populated city in the United States with 3,849,378 people and Palos Verde Estates has 13,340 people.
    -Both cities have a variety of racial and ethnic groups living there, but Los Angeles is a much more diverse city than Palos Verde Estates.

    Conclusion: Based on the information about the two cities (demographics and resources) I've concluded that Los Angeles has more money and resources to provide for its residents and therefore, the library is a more useful tool. Palos Verde Estates, being a smaller city on the outskirts of Los Angeles, receives many visits per year, but has less resources for its city compared to Los Angeles

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  33. HOUSTON vs. AUSTIN Public Libraries

    Houston's population is over double that of Austin, 1,953,631 for Houston and 709,000 for Austin.

    A surprising statistic I found was that 81.5% of Houston's population is male, leaving only 18.5% female.

    Racial Percentages
    Houston
    55.9% white
    40.6% black
    22% Hispanic/Latino
    Austin
    65.4% white
    30.5% Hispanic/Latino
    Other Statistics
    Houston
    26.4% disabled
    23.6& do not speak English in the home
    very large immigrant pop- particularly Asian
    Austin
    14.4% below poverty line

    Both Houston and Austin have a mixture of older and younger family makeups, although Houston has a large African American population while Austin has a large Hispanic/Latino culture. Houston also has a relatively large gay and lesbian community.

    Houston and Austin have some similarities in their demographics, but also quite a few differences. Both libraries consist of the central library along with several branches (Houston=37, Austin=22). Austin libraries seem to offer more Spanish resources such as children programs and Informacion en Espanol. Houston Libraries serve a total of 727,556 users with about 1/3 more adults than children. The income for Houston also soars at $34.5 million.

    Both library systems face the difficult task of appealing to users of various ages and cultural backgrounds, while trying to stay on the cutting edge of technology and services. Both offer services that are focused towards a variety of users, such as those interested in technology, books, reading groups, etc. Austin Public Library seems to offer a wider range of children programs. Also, while Austin focuses more on the Spanish/Latino population, Houston focuses on the African American population with presentations, speakers, and information all about Black History Month. Each library is specific to the communities they serve and try to relate their accommodations accordingly.

    Olivia Halls

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  34. Miami vs. Atlanta

    When comparing the libraries of Atlanta and Miami, there is a big difference in services and income. Miami seems to be a much larger library with many more resources. There is more than double the income as well as visits and circulation in Miami than Atlanta. One good example that shows Miami as much more "up to date" is the library public internet terminals. In Atlanta, there are only 578, while in Miami, there are 1,135 available. But, since many people in Miami are below the poverty line, I feel the library should try to meet the needs of their community a little more. The Atlanta Fulton library seems to offer many services to their people.
    In class, when Professor had compared Camden and Princeton, there were huge differences in the two cities and libraries. When comparing Miami with other city libraries in Florida, you cal also see many similar differences that show lesser and unequal resources between Miami Dade Public Library and others.

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  35. I compared the Chicago Public Library and the Urbana Free Library.

    The population is Chicago is 2,836,658 while the population in Urbana is only 36,395.

    Chicago:
    -36.8% Black
    -31.3% White
    -26.0% Hispanic

    Urbana:
    -65.4% White
    -14.3% Black
    - 3.5% Hispanic

    The Chicago Public Library has 79 branches whereas the Urbana Library only has one so obviously Chicagos Library has many more resources for its visitors. Even though it is a smaller city, Urbana still has an average of 1,000 users per day and is ranked in the top one percent of public libraries nationwide.

    Both libraries have an excellent children's section and make a great effort to reach out to all different types of people in their communities.

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  36. Cincinnati and Hamilton Co Library vs East Cleveland Public Library

    The cleveland library has a much smaller population and a larger percentage of low income families. The Cincinatti LIbrary has almost 4,000,000 more collection items. It also has a lot more visits, childrens material, federal and state income and staff.
    The both have similar amounts of branches at 41. While they are both nice libraries, the size accessibility and quantity of books is better in the Cincinnati Library.

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  37. I compared Detroit Public Library in Detroit Michigan with Ann Arbor District Library in Ann Arbor Michigan.

    The Demographics of Detroit were:
    Big City Lites
    City Roots
    lowrise living
    urban achievers
    urban elders

    The Demographics of Ann Arbor were:
    Boomtown Singles
    Brite lites Li'l City
    City startups
    Executice Suites
    Up and Comers

    First I looked at Detroit Public Library:
    There is one central library, with 23 branch libraries. The service area population is 951,270 people with a total of 432 staff members This library has a total circulation of 914,709 and 7977 inter library loans provided and 251 inter library loans recieved.

    The Ann Arbor District Library has one central library and only three branch library. The service area population is 155,611, with 147 total staff member working. The total circulation of this library is 3,241,413 with 1,556 inter library loans and 11,908 inter library loans received.

    The service area population for the Detroit library is a lot larger than Ann Arbors service population which is because of Detroit's city location. The Detroit's library website was promoting many Black History Month activities and the 2009 African American booklist from it's home page. This was trying to target the population area of Detroit which is 83.9% African American. On the other hand, with only a 5.2% African American population, Ann Arbor library's home page was a picture of the library and it's history. Also, the median family income in Detroit is $28,873 which might relate to the significantly lower circulation at its library.

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  38. Cicero Public Library & Newberry Library in Illinois

    The Cicero library has much less resources and services than does the Newberry library. The cicero library does have computers for extra information gathering. However, looking at Newberry's webpage I found many different resources and services that they have. Just to list a few of them they have: teaching programs, theatrical and musical performances, discussions, and an extensive non-circulating collection of rare books, maps, music, and manuscripts. They are focused on providing an active educational and cultural presence in the area. Researching the two libraries, it is evident that these two libraries reflect the community they are in. The Newberry community is very educated (in terms of school degree) and it is clear that the library provides many resources to meet the needs of the people. However, the Cicero community is not as educated (in terms of school degree), thus the library does not provide as many interactive educational programs for them.

    Cicero population is about 86,133 people whereas Newberry has about 47,513 people.

    The Cicero population is about 48% white, 1.1% Black/African American, 1% Asian, and 44.5% other. About 48% of the population has at least a high school diploma and only 6.1% have a bachelor's degree or more. The median family income is about $40,000.
    The Newberry population is about 65% white, 27% Black/African American, 4% Asian, and 1.1% other. About 91% have at least a high school diploma and 63% have a bachelor's degree or more. The median family income is $72,000.

    Looking at the demographics, there appears to be a substantial correlation between the number of resources and services the library provides and the education of the population. Where Cicero has very few people with a Bachelor's degree or more, Newberry has a very high number of people with this education. Newberry also has a much higher median family income than does Cicero.

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  39. New York vs. Chappaqua

    New York City Branch Library serves a population of about 3,320,000 people and has a total income of around $234,480,600. a little over half of the money comes from local sources, and the least amount comes from federal, only 1,791,295 dollars of the total. The New York BRanch Library has 87 branches.

    Chappaqua serves only a population of 16,704 people which is a much smaller amount than New York. Also, its total income is around $2,455,000, which is also a lot less than New York. Almost all of its income comes from local sources, and none of it comes from federal.

    Chappaqua, NY is a much smaller city than New York, which is why it has a lot less patrons and is also probably the reason why they don't receive as much money for funding purposes.

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  40. What differences do you perceive between the two libraries in terms of their resources and services?

    When comparing Miami and Atlanta, it is evident that there is a disparity between the two libraries. Miami which has a higher overall population, has almost double the income of Atlanta; however, it also has more individuals that are below the poverty level. These are the two extremes of the economic span. It would follow then that the resources of Miami should be more suited to the needs of the community than what they currently are. While it does have more than double the library visits and circulation than that of Atlanta, I feel that the library may not be as adequately suited to the diverse needs evident in Miami. I have to also note that circulation is not the only measure of the use of a library. What about those individuals that are ever present in Miami that don’t have the ability to check out materials. Furthermore, the library in Miami has the same types of children’s programs as Atlanta. These children’s programs, and just other community programs in Miami, should be more suited to the diverse needs. Two cities that are so different should not have the same types of programs. In relation to the individual, Atlanta seems to more adequately prepared for the needs of its citizens.

    What relationship do you see between the demographics and the library resources and services when you compare and contrast two cities in the same state?

    In class, the Professor compared Camden, NJ to Princeton, NJ. It is sad to think that sometimes the disparity between libraries so close together are so large. This disparity can be seen when comparing the Miami Dade Public Library to many other cities and their libraries in Florida such as Tampa. Resources tend to be exponentially lower for some libraries than others and as Tracie Hall said, “Yellow palaces and white cathedrals exist because we who work in libraries create them as well as the distances between them.”

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  41. Newark, NJ vs. Millburn, NJ

    Newark (Zip code 07102) Population = 12,408
    Average household income = $13,421
    Unemployment = 10.9% Families living below poverty = 45.9%
    Employment – Large corporations employ local residents
    Education = 1247 people with at least a 2 yr post high school degree (10%)
    Family Households = 6511

    Newark Public Library
    Books and Serial volumes: Total =1,610,344 per capita = 6.38
    Total Circulation = 247,905 Per capita = 0.98
    Library Total Income = $16,254,793 Amount per capita = $64.43
    Library Visits = 488,320 Per capita 1.94
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Millburn (Zip code 07041) Population = 6,880
    Average household income = $99,650
    Unemployment 1.4% Families living below poverty = 0.8%
    Employment – Most people commute to Manhattan
    Education = 3296 people with at least a 2 yr post high school degree (nearly 50%)
    Family Households = 5923

    Millburn Public Library
    Books and Serial volumes: Total = 113,165 per capita = 6.21
    Total Circulation = 227,642 Per capita 12.49
    Library Total Income = $2,556,529 Amount per capita =$140.25
    Library Visits = 221,381 Per capita 12.15
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    In comparing the nearby communities of Newark and Millburn, NJ it is noted that Newark is a much larger city which employs a large number of its residents within its community. Millburn has less industry and many of its residents commute to nearby Manhattan for employment.

    Statistics show that the two libraries are equal in the number of books per capita, yet the library income per capita is nearly 2 ½ times greater in the smaller community of Millburn. Millburn, which is primarily residential with an above average household income, could account for that difference it they have higher property taxes that support local, public organizations. In addition, most of the population of Millburn lives in family households with higher education who tend to support local cultural facilities, such as libraries.

    It should be noted that the Millburn Public Library is the only library in that community, whereas in Newark, there are at least 15 other libraries of various types citywide that residents can visit and utilize. This could explain why the library visits and circulation per capita are so low in the Newark Public Library; only 1.94 and 0.98 per capita respectively, as compared with the 12.15 and 12.49 per capita visits in Millburn. Also, middle-class family oriented communities tend to use amenities that promote learning and community involvement, which could explain the greater library visits and circulation in Millburn.

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  42. Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, MD vs. Anne Arundel County Public Library in Annapolis, MD

    The very first thing I noticed when comparing these two libraries was the population each of them serves. Enoch Pratt Free Library serves a community of 15,097 people, and Anne Arundel County Public Library serves an entire county, which holds 500,000 people. This might not be that big of a problem if the size of the library in Anne Arundel County could successfully accommodate the size of the community. However, the Baltimore Library has more branches, 21 to Anne Arundel's 15 and almost twice as many staff even though Anne Arundel's Library serves 33 times as many people. The Baltimore Library also receives an enormously larger amount of funding.
    Because of this funding difference, The Baltimore library has more than twice the size of the collection of the Anne Arundel Library. What I found to be most interesting when comparing these two libraries is that the visitors of the Baltimore Library, which has a very large collection for the size of its population, average 2.23 visits per year. Where as visitors of the Anne Arundel Library, which has a much smaller collection and a much larger population, average 5.59 visits per year. This shows that the population of Anne Arundel utilizes their limited resources just as much if not more than other cities who have an abundance of resources.
    As far as differences in services are concerned, Anne Arundel County Public Library seems to be more focused on children activities than anything else. Enoch Pratt Free Library has a large variety of events for children, but it also has many event catered toward the adult population, such as community organizations and a business center. Anne Arundel, on the other hand had a very long list of events, nearly all of which were for ages 6-12.

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  43. Chicago, Illinois 60605 vs. Urbana, Illinois 61810

    I compared a specific zip code of Chicago to Urbana, Illinois. The 60605 zip code of Chicago has a significantly smaller population (12,423) than Urbana (29,369); however, Urbana's median incomes were significantly lower than Chicago incomes, given Urbana's poverty levels were at least double Chicago's. However, analyzing the library data for these two cities was difficult in the sense that there was not specific branch library data for the 60605, rather a culmination of 77 branch library data for the CPL. In context, not compared to the Chicago Public Library system as a whole, the Urbana Free Public Library (a single branch) seems to have significant circulation data, signaling that library use in Urbana is common.

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  44. All of the librarians at the Houston Public Library are ALA accredited with and MLS, while some of the librarians at the Boston Public Library do not. The Boston Pulbic Library has almost 5,000,000 more books in its collection then the Houston Public Library, despite its poppulation being almost a quarter of the size. The Houston Public Library averages about a million more visits per year however. Houston has a larger number of racial minorities such as blacks, hispanics, asians etc. This is probably just because Houston is a much larger city population wise then Boston. However, percantage wise there is a higher percentage of minorities in Boston across the board then there is in Houston. The total expenditures and incomes for the two libraries are surprisingly similiar, with all the figures being in the 30 million range. The median household income in Houston is $36,616 compared to $48,729 in Boston. Houston has 19.2% of its people living below the poverty line, compared to Boston having 16.7%

    The two libraries, both situated in large cities, with Houston being larger, both serve many people each year. Their incomes and expenditures are surprisingly similar, seeing that Boston has many more books in circulation. Houston has more visits annually as well. I believe that since Houstons population is much greater, and that it has more people below the poverty line, this is why it averages more visits. Perhaps Boston can afford more books and services because the city itself has a higher median household income. Education doesn't seem to be a factor because the number of people reaching certain academic milestones in each city are very similar.

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  45. The Libraries I compaered were East Cleveland Public Library and New York Public, Branch Libraries. Although these to zip codes had a huge difference in ethnic, social, and economical backgrounds the information I could find about the the library in zipcode 10016 was limited to what I could find on the website for the New York public library system.

    Cleveland: Mostly low income, very racially diverse, many older people and couples living on low fixed income.

    New York: Very High income, some older couples with older or no kids (very welthy), many young progressive well off singles and couples.

    I found that the services provided by the Cleveland Library was generally lacking compared to the New York Mid-Manhatten Library. The hours weren't as long, not as many materials were provided, and they didn't have as much Internet access.

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  46. Memphis Public Library System vs. Knoxville Public Library System

    The zip code surrounding the Memphis Public Library System is comprised of:
    Big City Blues
    City Roots
    Low-Rise Living
    Multi-Culti Mosaic
    Suburban Pioneers

    In Knoxville
    City Startups
    Mobility Blues
    Park Bench Seniors

    Memphis has a population of roughly 650,000 people, 62% of which is black and 31% of which is white. 20% of the families in Memphis are below the poverty level, which is twice that of the national average (9.8%). Family income is roughly $41,000 a year, significantly less than the national average of $60,000 a year.

    Knoxville has a total population of 180,000 people, 80% of which are white and 16% are black. 16% of the families in Knoxville are below the poverty level. Median family income is $43,000 a year, similar to that of Memphis.

    I noticed a marked difference between the websites for the Memphis Library and the Knoxville Library - most notably it featured a clear and colorful calendar of events happening in the library - everything from Children's programs to teens to concerts, story times, exhibits, lectures, and author speakings. There are programs on "Google Secrets" about how to organize your google account to make yourself more efficient and Scrabbler players weekly meetings.

    The Memphis Public Library system also offers programs, most based on tax help and public resources. There are links for those interested in book clubs, but the first thing that appears is a how-to on starting a book club - when finally being directed to a site with hours for a club, there is no mention of what the book for the month is, nor is it very welcoming. I can find no events solely for community members to meet outside of the book club, and there are few speaker events as well.

    The Knoxville Library system serves 390,000 people, has 228 internet terminals, and 35 staff members with ALA accreditation. In all there are around 175 staff members. The Knoxville system earns $10,650,000 a year and only spends $10,300,000 of that, operating at a gain of roughly $300,000 a year. There are about 1,500,000 library visits a year, and 2,400,000 in books checked out a year - on average, more than six books per person in the area that the library serves.

    The Memphis Public Library serves nearly twice that of the Knoxville Library - 900,000 people a year. It has 431 internet terminals, and nearly 400 staff members, 58 of whom are ALA accredited. The library earns $19,800,000 a year but spends nearly $22 million - operating at a 2.2 million dollar loss a year. While there are over three million visits to the library a year, the total circulation is nearly identical to that of Knoxville - fewer people go to the library to check out books.

    In conclusion - the population in Memphis uses the libraries for other resources than checking out books. However, apparently, not for book clubs or Scrabble meetings, since, compared to Knoxville, it would appear that the library in Memphis does not generate as much community. The Memphis Public Library is also ill-funded considering it is attempting to serve a large section of the population (although, one could argue, a better use of money would serve as well).

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  47. I did my research on examining Detroit Public Library vs. Ann Arbor District Library.

    There are many differences easily seen between the services and resources of these libraries. First of all, Detroit public library has a service area of 951,000 which is about 9 times larger than ann arbor public library. The total income of the Detroit library is about double that of Ann Arbor and they have 387 internet terminals compared to 103 at Ann Arbor. What surprised me the most was the number of events and resources Ann Arbors library had compared to Detroits. Ann Arbor holds special events everyday for people of all ages including, lectures, panels, films, crafts, concerts, games, tournaments, study rooms, book clubs, computer class and many more. They have tons of things going on everyday. Detroit also had many events but it didnt seem like they had nearly as many as the Ann Arbor district library.

    There are also many differences in the social status and economic situations in the two cities. In Ann Arbor, 80.6% of people are white compared to 9.8% in Detroit. 76.9% of the population of Ann Arbor has a Bachelors degree or hogher compared to 18.1% in Detroit. 22.8% of the families in Detroit live below the poverty line compared to 3% in Ann Arbor. In 1999 the median family income in Ann Arbor was $89045 compared to $20708 in Detroit.

    Overall, Ann Arbor is a much wealthier city to live in and that might explain why they have so many services and resources at their library. Detroit is much bigger than Ann Arbor and that can explain why the income of the library is much larger.

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  48. Atlanta, GA vs. Augusta, GA

    What differences do you perceive between the two libraries in terms of their resources and services?

    First off, The Atlanta library system is much larger than the Augusta library system. In at Atlanta there are 32 libraries, where Augusta only has 16. The Atlanta system has three times as many staff as the Augusta system. The Atlanta system can still borrow within its own system, which gives it an advantage over Augusta. The Atlanta system has over 2 million books, the Augusta system only has about 600,000. Both loan books within their own systems, but since the Atlanta branch is bigger, more loans take place. The Atlanta system brings in over double what the Augusta system brings in, but that makes sense because they have twice as many branches. The Atlanta system also has almost 5 times as many internet terminals, which will definitely help the community bridge the "digital divide".

    What relationship do you see between the demographics and the library resources and services when you compare and contrast two cities in the same state?

    The overall population of Atlanta is 416,474 and the overall population of Augusta is 195,182. Just this accounts for the funding and more resources and services in the Atlanta system. Their median household incomes are almost the same, which makes me believe that the funding for the Atlanta system comes mostly because of the higher population there. But this also could be partly because Atlanta has almost double the percent of people with college degrees. Both cities have very mixed populations racially, which makes me think that this is not a huge factor when looking at the resources and services offered at the two different libraries.

    Overall, I thought that the differences between the two libraries were mostly because of the population differences. The cities seem pretty similar demographically and so when looking at the two library systems, I compared them mostly based on numbers found on the nces.ed.gov website.

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  51. Newark vs Millburn NJ

    Newark:
    Population 281,402 64% High School Grads $40,585 family income
    21% White 53% Black 32% Latino

    Millburn:
    Population 19,765 96% High School Grads $158,888 family income
    89% White 1% Black 8% Asian

    Being from Essex County New Jersey, I had to compare the two library systems that are within my own backyard. Despite being only 20 minutes from each other, the two places couldn't be more different. Newark is a very gritty, urban city that is largest city in New Jersey. It is racially diverse with a make-up of 53% African Americans, 32% Hispanics and 21% Caucasians. On the other hand, Millburn is an extremely affluent and mainly Caucasian (89%) with a minimal Asian population. The demographics and economic backgrounds of the two towns no doubt shape the setup of the libraries.

    The Newark Public Library has one central library with 10 branches. They have a relatively similar circulation compared to the Millburn Public Library, and Newark had almost double the number of visits. For a city with 13 times the population, that is nothing too special. The most astounding fact that I found was that the Newark Public Library spends only half the amount per capita that Millburn. This has to be related to the number of visits and the much lower socioeconomic background. These two towns really show the true diversity of Essex County as there are a myriad of different cultures and economic backgrounds that make up the county.

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  52. I researched New Orleans Public Library and Boston Public Library.
    Boston Public Library serves a little over 100,000 more patrons than New Orleans, but has significantly more resources and services and has more to offer, overall. Boston's library has over twice the branches and outlets as New Orleans and more that seven times the amount of internet terminals. Boston has more than 30 times the amount of staff that New Orleans has and more than 4 times the amount of income. Boston has over 8 times the amount of library visits, but this may be related to the fact that Boston's collection is significantly larger than New Orleans'.
    When comparing New Orleans to Shreveport, LA's main library, you can clearly see that Shreveport is a much wealthier city than New Orleans. New Orleans serves over 200,000 more patrons, however, Shreveport's library has a larger staff, higher income, and almost twice the collection size that New Orleans has. It is clear that New Orleans' library has really felt the effects of the poor, impoverished city.

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  53. Houston Public Library vs. Enonch Pratt Free Public Library.

    I decided to compare these two libraries, located in Houton, Texas and Baltimore, Maryland, respectively.
    The first thing that I noticed was that Houston has a bigger population than Baltimore. Because of this they offer more of certain services. For instance, Houston Libray has 579 internet terminals while Enoch only has 358. Also, it has a bigger staff with 585 and 146 MLS certified, compared to 459 staff members, 115 of them being certified. In contrast, while Houston has more library visits than Baltimore, they make a similar amount of income. Houson with $34,696,116 and Baltimore with $32,653,782.

    In addition, I noticed that both cities had a similar high school graduation rate, and also a small percentage difference in individuals who have a B.A. degree.
    In conclusion, I think that both of this libraries share common similarities, but also a lot of different ones. One of the major ones being that Houston has a higher population yet very similar to that of Balitmore. Perhaps this has to due with the fact that there is a higher percentage of a minority population in that region.

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  54. Boston, MA(02116) vs Columbus, OH(44112)
    Boston Public Library vs East Cleveland Public Library

    What differences do you perceive between the two libraries in terms of their resources and services?

    I found that there are 23 branch libraries in Boston and Columbus only has 6.
    Libraries in Columbus are closed on Sundays, and libraries in Boston are open on Sundays.
    Libraries in Boston are more detailed and informative on their websites than in Columbus.
    Libraries in both areas have computers, internet, and Wi-Fi.
    Libraries in both areas have divided space for children and adults.

    What relationship do you see between the demographics and the library resources and services when you compare and contrast two cities in the same state?

    Columbus has more population than Boston, but is more consisted of African Americans and Asians, while Boston is dominated by Whites. Columbus has more people living in single-parent households and much less people living in family households. Columbus has more people that are unemployed, and the percentage of families that are below poverty level is 31.3% more than in Boston. In terms of income, families in Boston have a higher median income than in Columbus. Much more people in Boston graduated from colleges than in Columbus.

    Libraries in Boston definitely have more resources and services than Columbus. People in Boston are richer and higher educated, thus libraries there are better equipped with many different programs.

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  55. Chicago Public Library (Harold Washington Branch) vs. Urbana Free Library

    Differences in Resources/Information Options
    -Harold Washington has a whole floor designed for technological research/computers, whereas Urbana has one room inside a larger sitting area.
    -Harold Washington has 8+ rooms for large banquets available upon rental, whereas Urbana has one auditorium and one conference room.
    -Harold Washington houses many more books/information sources because of the enormous size of the library.
    -Urbana has more of a college-town feel with a tighter-knit atmosphere.

    City Demographics:
    Chicago, IL
    -Race: 42% Caucasian, 36.8% Black/African American, 4.3% Asian
    -Income: 61.3% employment rate, largest population falls within $50,000-$74,999/year pay range
    -Education: 10% graduate school, 15.5% bachelor's degree, 18.7% some college

    Urbana, IL
    -Race: 78.8% Caucasian, 11.2% Black/African American, 6.5% Asian
    -Income: 67.7% employment rate, largest population falls within $50,000-$74,999/year pay range
    -Education: 19.4% graduate school, 18.6% bachelor's degree, 21.6% some college

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  56. For this assignment, I decided to gather information on the Baltimore and Newark library systems. I think one of the most important things to realize with gathering statistics is the fact that there are many different sources from which information can be gathered. For this reason, it is hard to compare population statistics between cities. What is relatively constant though, is library data. This is makes comparing cities almost as easy as just comparing their libraries which is another important reason why library data should be collected by a standardized method. In any case, the cities of Baltimore and Newark are very similar in composition and library data, with Baltimore just having a larger population to cater to. While both have average visits of less than 2 per capita per year, the Enoch Pratt Library in Baltimore has more than twice as many branches (23 to 10), and more than twice as much income ($32,653,782 to $16,254,793) which make sense to be almost proportional. Other than differences size, these areas have very similar composition with average incomes around $50,000 and high percentage White and African American populations. One statistic that stands out is that Baltimore has three times as many inter-library loans which leads me to believe that size is not the only reason for the higher usage of the Baltimore library system, and that there is likely higher participation in the Baltimore library system. One possibility for this explanation is the fact that 72% of the population are high school graduates or higher in Baltimore when compared to 64% in Newark. What holds true here is that these are both successful library systems in diverse cities in culture, income, and education.

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  57. Houston Public Library vs. Miami Public Library

    Differences
    -Percentage of white people (50% Houston to 70% Miami)
    -Income/Funding for the library is much higher per capita for Miami
    -Number of Collections per capita is much higher at Miami
    -Number of visits is much higher at Miami

    Similarities
    -Approximately the same number of patrons served (2,000,000 people)
    -Approximately the same number of staff in each library
    -Average income per family is very close to the same ($40,000)
    -Approximately the same percentage of high school and college graduates(70% and 30% respectively)

    Both libraries have easy to navigate websites, making both libraries easy for patrons to gain access to their information. The Houston library has more convenient hours being open from 9-9 most days while the Miami library is only open from 9-6 most days. It seems to me that since Miami have more visits, it gets more support from the community and therefore more funding to buy more things for its collection. It seems to me that the Houston library is more convenient for the patrons so the only thing that I can think of is it might be in a bad location that doesn’t make patrons feel comfortable and at home.

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  58. I compared Chicago, IL to Urbana, IL, and found some surprising facts.

    For demographics, Chicago surpassed Urbana in median income, w/$39k compared to Urbana's $28k. And while Chicago had relatively equal proportions of white and black citizens at 40%, Urbana had significantly more white citizens, at 67%, with black and Asian populations making up about 14% each of the remaining population. Despite having significantly fewer schools, Urbana has a higher level of High School graduates (91%) than Chicago (46%).

    First of all, although Chicago has close to 3 million people, and Urbana has only 40 thousand, Urbana's single library provided and received more ILL's than Chicago did, both by number and per capita.
    Secondly, Urbana had higher funding per capita, with $64.72/person compared to Chicago's $31.42. Urbana also had more books per capita. However, Urbana had significantly fewer Internet terminals compared to Chicago.

    I found some of these results surprising, since a smaller, relatively "poorer" community was given more than sufficient library resources to help its citizens. It is obvious why the Urbana Free Library boasts as being in the "top 1%" in the nation.

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  59. Portland, OR vs. Salem, OR

    I compared two large cities in Oregon, and instead of libraries I compared the library systems throughout the city (the main library and its branches).

    DEMOGRAPHICS:
    As of July 2007, Portland has a population of 550,396 that increases about 3% every ten years, the median age of a citizen is 35.2 years, the male-female ratio is 49.4-50.6%, and the average annual household income is $47,143. The white/Caucasian ethnicity makes up 75.5% of the population, Hispanic is 6.8%, and Black 6.6%. The biggest public library in Portland (part of 17 branches) is the Multnomah County Library, which serves 1/5 of the population of the city. Portland is the largest city in Oregon.

    As of 2006, Salem's population is 142,006--50.2% male and 49.8% female. The median age is 35.7 years old and 83.1% is white/Caucasian. 14.6% are Hispanic/Latino and 2.4% are Asian (all other ethnicities are less than 2% of the population). The average household annual income is $41,010 (as of 2007). It is the third largest city in Oregon .


    RECOURCES:
    The MCL has over 430,000 library card holders and has a combined total of 1,375,624 books.1,904,682 items can be checked out, such as books, videos, audio items, periodicals,and other library materials.There was a total of 4,701,886 visits in 2007 with the total circulation of 19,900,816 materials.The system contain a total of 385 public computer terminals, all with internet access.

    The Salem Public Library only consists of two branches: Central Library and West Library. Both offer public-use computers with internet access, meeting rooms and one auditorium available for rent to community groups, monthly displays by local and regional artists, and an impressive permanent art collection.The Central library, whic serves 135,000 residents, is open 53 hours a week. The Salem Public Library (West Branch) offers its patrons 350,000 items, including print and audio books, DVDs and videos, music CDs and cassettes, and more. Salem residents, on average, circulate about 1.2 million items per year.
    -------------------------------------------------
    I think it is surprising that there is such disparity between the two cities. Portland, while five times bigger, circulates 19 times the materials of Salem. The demographics are related the same in income and race, just on a smaller scale for Salem, but the library system for Portland is much better funded, available, and generally bigger. It seems strange that the smaller of the cities--which is still considerable in size, only has two libraries.

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  60. I compared the Chicago Public Library with the Atlanta Fulton Public Library. In most cases, the Chicago Public Library has far more resources and services. I noticed that the Chicago library has way more branches than the Atlanta library. The Chicago Public Library has 77 branches while the Atlanta Fulton Public Library has only 30 branches. The Chicago library has a total income of $90,988,539 while Atlanta Fulton has a total income of $31,850,529. As you can see the Chicago Public Library generates about three times as much money as Atlanta Fulton. The Chicago Public Library has about twice as many books and audio materials as Atlanta Fulton. This seems appropriate as Chicago has about twice as many people visiting per year as Atlanta Fulton. After studying the demographics of the two areas, it seems perfectly logical that the Chicago Public Library should have more resources and services. The neighborhood around the Chicago Public Library has about twice as many people as the Atlanta Fulton neighborhood.
    I also looked at the differences in demographics and library resources between the Chicago Public Library and the Rockford Public Library. Being a much larger city, the Chicago Public Library boasts far more resources and services than the Rockford Public Library. Being from a small town, it seems a little unfair that people in large cities have such a great selection of library resources and activities. Some say that since a library is not being used as much, it doesn’t require as much funding or resources. This is kind of a vicious cycle. I understand the argument that more people need more resources, but I also believe that libraries should have enough enticing resources and activities to attract lots of people.

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  61. Miami Dade Public Library VS. John F. Germany Public Library in Tampa, Florida.

    The two cities, although both located in Florida, are very different. Miami has a larger minority population. Because of this, 68% of Miami citizens speak a language other than, or in addition to English, vs. 24% in Tampa. Tampa has a higher employment rate and also an average family income of $10,000 higher than Miami's.

    The two libraries seem to reflect the demographics of the cities. Miami's library is geared more to the general public. It serves more people and also has many more resources than the Tampa library. Miami offers more programs such as story tellers and music programs. They also offer an adult literacy program. This is directly correlated to the higher illiteracy present in Miami. A promising sign though, is that more people check out books from Miami than from Tampa. Miami actually won an award in 2008 for outstanding library service.

    The Tampa library seems to cater to a different group. Because Tampa has a much larger percentage of people with school degrees, the library focuses more on professionals. They too offer programs, but they tend to focus on business and the arts. This library is used less frequently than Miami, and this could be because of the difference in education between the cities.

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  62. Dallas Public Libraries (DPL) VS Chicago Public Libraries (CPL)

    The Chicago Public Library system area covers a little more than twice the population that the Dallas system does. From what I gather, it seems that Chicago has --on average-- 3 times the service that Dallas has, in terms of branches, internet terminals, and librarians.

    When looking at both libraries' finances, this makes sense, because CPL brings in $31.42 per capita and DPL brings in $21.34. So when the math is done, both libraries seem to be run with about the same efficiency, but Chicago receives much more money.

    At the 2000 census, the median household income was $38,625 in Chicago and $40,147 for Dallas. About 20% lived below the poverty line in both cities. Chicago was 42% white and 37% black. Dallas was 57% white and 24% black. This suggests that there is a difference demand for libraries between these two ethnicities. This probably comes from differences in income and overall lifestyle/traditions.

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  63. Boston Public Library vs. Enoch Pratt Free Library (Baltimore)

    Both libraries service about the same number of people (600,000 give or take 30,000), and both have about the same income (around $33 million). Boston, however, receives nearly 250 times more federal money than Baltimore does, but Maryland gives the Enoch Pratt Free Library almost 12 times more money than MA gives Boston ($5.4 million vs. $470,000).

    There are many more internet terminals in Boston that in Baltimore (559 vs. 358). Boston has nearly 4 times more books than Baltimore does, and twice as many videos. People in Boston visit the library around 3 times as often as Baltimoreans and the circulation in Boston is double that of Baltimore. There are more reference transactions per capita in Baltimore than in Boston (2.33 vs. 1.76). Circulation of children's materials in Boston doubles that of Baltimore's (708,892 vs. 326,948), but the children's program attendance is more than double in Baltimore (282,976 vs. 101,763).

    Boston was 54.5% white and 25.3% black. Baltimore was 31.6% white and 64.3% black. Boston, as a general trend, seems to have a wealthier, higher educated population than Baltimore, which, along with the differences is population composition, may explain the higher number of resources. The difference could also be caused by different needs between the two vastly different population compositions.

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  64. Chicago Public LIbrary vs. Urbana Free Library

    Close to 80% of Chicago population is split between white's and African American's and Urbana is dominated by 67% white and 14% both African American's and Asian's. The population of Chicago is close to 10 times the population of Urbana. So obviously Chicago Library has a greater amount of circulation, programs, terminals, ect. But per capita, Urbana Library beats out Chicago in all those categories. I do not think it is fair to compare cities with such massive differences in population by total or per capita collection and services. I think both librarys' collections and services are very good. Chicago has a lot of diverse material to serve its large variety of people and serves over a quarter of a million children in various programs per year. While Urbabna has close to 10 visits per year per citizen.

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  65. I did research between Chicago Public Library and Urbana Free Library. The reason why I chose these 2 libraries is I live in Skokie, IL, which is really close to these. I go to Skokie Public Library in my free time, but I have not been in Chicago Public Library, I thought it would be more interesting. In according to my researches Chicago Public Library has the largest library system in Midwest of US. Chicago Public Library serves the city of Chicago with population of 2,896,016. But Urbana Free Library serves the city of Urbana with population of 37,362, a lot less than CPL. Because of the area, development and community. Urbana Free Library has 1 central Library with no any other branches, but CPL has 79 branches, it shows how big the community is. They both have public internet terminals. CPL’s public internet terminals are 1500, but UFL’s are 53. UFL’s ability to access new technology and information is less than CPL. I was looking at the period of having library card for both libraries, but UFL provides its library cards for 2 years, CFL provides for 3 years and both have free of charge. There are no big differences between those 2 library open hours. The Library Hours are Monday thru Friday 9am-9pm, on Saturday 9am-5pm, and on Sunday 9am-5pm. CPL has language options for website access, but UFL does not.
    For demographic resource shows that CPL’s population’s 17.3% is 55 years old or older, and UFL’s population’s 14.2% is 55 years old or older. Older people’s usages of the library are close to each other. There are no differences between race, sex, religion, or politics they are both accessible for both libraries. Unemployment rates are very different in those 2 cities. For example in Urbana, IL unemployment rate is decreasing until 1999 and increasing in2008about 6.2%, in Chicago, IL unemployment rate is increasing and decreasing year by year and in 2008 unemployment rate is about 7.1%.
    The good thing is both cities are satisfied for what they have in their libraries.

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  66. Boston Public Library v. Somerville Public Library

    The greatest difference between these two libraries is that Boston serves a much larger population. The Boston library serves 569,165 people and has 28 branches, whereas Somerville serves 75,621 people and has 2 branches. As a result of this size difference Boston has many more resources. Boston’s circulation of 2,419,145 and $35,190,453 income dwarfs Somerville’s circulation of 390,344and income of $1,825,014. Boston’s library is also much bigger than Somerville’s as it has 5 levels, a restaurant, and a café. Boston’s library also seems to function as a museum as well as a library. The library was built in 1854, and contains a historic collection of materials, including some of Shakespeare’s original portfolio and John Adam’s personal collection. Because these materials are so rare, they are often not available for public viewing, only at special research exhibits periodically throughout the year. Furthermore, because the unique art and architecture of the library attracts many tourists each year, daily tours are offered.

    City demographics many play a role in another difference between the libraries. The average yearly income in Somerville is approximately $61,000, whereas Boston’s is lower at approximately $50,000. Somerville is 73% white/non-Hispanic with 40% of the population over 25 holding bachelor degrees. Boston is 50% white/non-Hispanic with 35% of the population over 25 holding bachelor degrees. Since Boston must serve a more culturally diverse population, they offer more classes and collections of materials appealing to minority groups. Boston’s 3,523,920 visits compared to 2,419,145 circulation suggests that people are using in-library resources, such as computers, more, as opposed to checking out books. Somerville, on the other hand, has 390,344 circulation and 372,675 visits. This would explain why Somerville’s websites are a bit more extensive, offering a virtual tour online and a myspace page. Overall, the two libraries are similar in more ways than not, but because Boston is much larger, must serve a more culturally diverse population.

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  67. I compared the Chicago Public Library and the Urbana Free Library.

    Resources and Services:
    The Chicago library was clearly a much larger library, considering it has 17 branches, 2 bookmobiles, and 80 total outlets, while Urbana only had 1 central outlet and 0 bookmobiles. Chicago had 1,500 internet terminals, compared to Urbana's 53. But this can be explained considering Chicago's library serves an area of 2,896,016 people while Urbana only serves 37,362. Therefore, Chicago also has a significantly greater number of librarians, materials, programs, and circulation.

    Demographic Info:
    Chicago is a much larger city than Urbana, which explains why the library is much larger. Chicago has a large variety and mix of races and many people who speak languages other than English. The income per capita is $41,481 and there are 1,781 individuals in poverty. In Urbana, the total population is under a third that of Chicago's. The population is significantly white. The income per capita is $15,219 and there are 7,214 individuals in poverty. The fact that Urbana is clearly a lower-income city than Chicago also explains why the library is so much smaller with less resources.

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  68. I compared the cities of Chicago and Urbana in Illinois. In general, Chicago has an older population, is more ethnically diverse, and has a higher family median income ($98,951) than Urbana does. It has more resources availible to the public in the form of bookstore, video rental stores and other services. However, the people of Chicago are not as educated as the people of Urbana. Urbana is generally younger, mostly white, and has a lower median family income ($43,622). It has less services availible to the public, but it has many more educated people, with over 50% of people having a bachelor's degree or higher.

    The two libraries are very different. The Chicago library has an overall circulation of 6,746,110 materials per year, compared with Urbana, whose circulation is 687,380. Clearly, the Chicago public library is used much more. This can also be seen in the fact that the Chicago Public Library has many more children attending children events, and it schedules more events for the general public. Chicago also has more materials and more internet access. Chicago has about 1,500 public internet terminals, whereas the Urbana Free Library has only 53. The Urbana library also only has 215,439 books and serial volumes, compared to 4,896,854 in the Chicago public library. In addition, the Chicago library has 2 bookmobiles, but the Urbana library doesn't have any. Clearly, there is a major difference between these two communities libraries.

    The low income and higher poverty levels in Urbana may contribute to the lower usage of the library. These people may not have access to transportation to get to the library, or may have multiple jobs that interfere with going to the library. In addition, the library doesn't have many materials or terminals for internet access. Perhaps the people of Urbana do not use the library as much because it doesn't serve the needs of the community, and has inadequate resources. Chicago on the other hand, is accessed much more frequently. This could be because the richer people have better access to transportation. Plus, they live in an urban area, so busing is availible to those who cannot afford cars. The library also has many more community activities that draw more people to the library. In addition, the library has more materials, better access to internet and more MLS Accredited staff to better serve the needs of the patrons. These, and other differences in the communities cause the differences between library usage.

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  69. In comparing Detroit Michigan with Ann Arbor Michigan one of the first differences I noticed in the populations is that Ann Arbor has a much higher income level per capita. They also have only 7.9% of families below the poverty line where as Detroit has 22.8% of families below the poverty line. There are more unemployed people in Detroit as well. Detroit has 8.3% unemployment while Ann Arbor has 3.8% unemployment. A higher percentage of the population of Ann Arbor is between the ages of twenty and twenty-four as opposed to Michigan which has more people that are sixty-five years and over. Ann Arbor has a much higher percentage of white and Asian people while Detroit has a much higher percentage of African Americans.

    The higher income of the population of the service area may account for the fact that the Ann Arbor receives more local funding than the Detroit library. While Detroit receives a little more State income per capita the Ann Arbor library has over twice as much income per capita than the Detroit library. This allows Ann Arbor to have more expenditures including higher salaries and wages. The Ann Arbor library has more visits per capita and more circulation per capita per year. In contrast the Detroit library has more books and serial volumes per capita than Ann Arbor. However the Ann Arbor library has more videos per capita. Over all the Ann Arbor community and library seems to be better off.

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  70. Boston Public Library vs. City of Newton Public Library
    Comparing Boston Public Library to any library in the United States is difficult. Comparing Boston Public Central Library to Newton Free Library, a mere 9 miles away, is almost unfair. I am not familiar with Boston or the state of Massachusetts so examining both of these libraries began as a blind process. Upon continued investigation however, I quickly became very familiar with each respective library system. Through this research I was able to compare and contrast the two libraries and make an educated analysis at why each library is the way that it is.
    As you may know Boston, MA is considered an educational hotspot (and sports too, depending on your opinion) with 53 universities in the area and a population of 569,165 citizens. Boston’s public library system services 12 neighborhoods through 27 branch libraries that combine for about 3,400,500 visits per year. Since 1995, the library has been consistently increasing its circulation from 2,000,000 and is now approaching 3,000,000.
    As the first large free municipal library in the United States, Boston Public Central Library offers hundreds of services including online collections, ask a librarian 24 hours a day, homework tutoring, free assistance with planning and paying for college, scholarly research programs and disability accommodations.
    Not only does it serve the traditional academic purposes of a library, but it can also be considered a museum and hang out. It has rare books and manuscripts like 1st editions of Shakespeare’s plays, John Adam’s personal library, and original Mozart music. The brilliant architecture of many of its buildings and open courtyards attracts tourists and residents alike. At the root of this magnificent library system and its programs/services is the surrounding communities and neighborhoods.
    Boston is a diverse city with a combination of Caucasian, Hispanic, and Asian communities making up the highest percentage of citizens. The average income is around $39,629 and 40% of the population has completed some type of higher education. The flip side of these respectable figures is that the other 60% has only a high school degree or no school at all. Also, 19.5% of the population is below the poverty level. Accordingly, Boston’s Public Library system accommodates this wide range of people through its programs and services mentioned before. Through its tech labs, long hours, and diverse service offerings the whole community has the potential to reap the benefits.
    Newport Free Library services a much different community than that of Boston. Despite only being a short 20 minute drive out of the Boston, the City of Newport is home to 83, 829 residents. 88.1% of these citizens are white and the average age is 35 years old. 65.7% of these residents have families and most children are at the elementary age. The median family income is $105,289 and only 2.6% of the population is living in poverty. The numbers don’t stop here. Well over half the population has either graduated from college or attended graduate school and the actual library circulates 1,929,138 books per year, a significant amount given the population.
    Based on quantitative data alone, a vastly different picture is painted than the one analyzed before. Newport Free Library, like Boston Public Library accordingly services its citizens. Based on the community demographics, Newport accommodates its upper class, middle aged, educated residents with programs such as a retirement planning club, women in career transition classes, and extensive research classes/opportunities. In addition, they offer many educational opportunities for children and after school programs as well as services and technical support for the less fortunate citizens. Newport may not be a museum, and it may not be located in one of the nation’s biggest, most diverse cities but the library system certainly does its duty to the citizens of the community by catering to their specific needs much like Boston’s Public Library system does for theirs.

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  71. Detroit has 23 branches and 387 internet terminals. It serves about 951,270 patrons. 130 librarians are employed throughout the branches. 7,376,829 books, which translates to 7.79 books per capita. 4.07 library visits per person per year through the Detroit library branches.
    In contrast, Atlanta has 30 branches, 578 internet terminals, and serves approximately 200,000 less people than does the Detroit library system. Although there are more branches, there are only 135 librarians; only five more than employed in Detroit. 2,128,085 books, which is only 2.7 per capita. Although the population of the cities are similar, Detroit has about 5 million more books in circulation than Atlanta. In general, one can make the assumption that Atlanta is more geared toward technological path because they have more internet terminals and more branches, yet less people and a considerable amount less books in circulation.
    Detroit, being a major metropolitan city, has a lower average income than does Ann Arbor. Ann Arbor receives much more local funding which relates to the higher property taxes, and higher incomes of the residents. Although the Detroit library has more overall books, the Ann Arbor library has better circulation and more per capita visits. I believe this can be greatly attributed to the fact that Ann Arbor is less of an urban/metropolitan center and has more funding and better resources available.

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  72. Baltimore Comparison:

    I compared the central branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Public Library (Baltimore) with the Anne County Public Library in Annapolis. The Baltimore public library system has significantly more resources (4.35 vs. 1.89 books per capita) and funding (by about $14,000). In addition, there are more people within the immediate proximity of the Baltimore central branch (11,108 people per square mile vs. 1,524 people per square mile). However, the Anne County library system has nearly double the number of library visits and a fourfold greater total circulation. What is attracting people to the Anne County Public Libraries?

    I have more questions at this point than answers. The libraries' services seem similar to one another. They have similar homework help resources, comparable career services, and each library hosts a variety of events. One key demographic difference between the two communities is the level of education. About 88% of the adult population near the Annapolis library has obtained a high school education, while this statistic is only 64% for the central library area in Baltimore. However, I don't know how much this would effect library circulation.

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  73. I compared the Chicago Public Library and the Detroit Public Library. Detroit has 23 branches and 130 librarians. They have 387 computer terminals. They have 7.79 books per capita. There is 4.07 visits to the library a year per person and .97 books checked out per person a year. The Chicago public library in contrast has 77 branches and 276 librarians. In Chicago there are 1,500 computer terminals. They have 1.69 books per person and 2.33 books are checked out per person a year. Both appear to have a good amount of events offered or promoted on the libraries websites. Both libraries appear to be closed on Sundays and have very similar hours. Overall I would say both libraries are very similar in the amount of services offered for the amount of people. By looking at the amount of books checked out per capita it seems like there is a possibility that the Chicago public library may tailor more to the needs of their public. It seems weird to me that even though the Detroit library has more books per person they have many less books checked out per year. It could also suggest that the Detroit library is used more for the internet access and third place that seem to be used more how it is used by the lesser privileged. 38,625 is the median income in Chicago while in while in Detroit the median is 29,526, which goes along with what we have learned about check out rates in Libraries.

    When comparing the Springfield Il public library and the Chicago public library there seems to be many differences. When just looking at the front page of their websites it appears an armature made the one for Springfield and they have very few events, some of them however include things such as classes on how to use word processing and the internet, suggesting that there may be many people that don't have access to their own computers. The median incomes of both cities appear fairly equal with only about 1000 dollars difference. These libraries seems to be fairly similar in the amount of things offered for the great difference in the number of people.

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  74. New Orleans (New Orleans Public Library) vs. Shreveport (Shreve Memorial Library):

    In terms of their resources and services, both libraries in Louisiana showed similar results. Both had functional websites with a lot of information about the aims of each library, the resources available, the contact information, how to apply for a job, what events were being held, and links to other programs or particular sectors within the library. In my opinion, though, the Shreveport website was more organized and professional looking whereas the information presented on the New Orleans website was more jumbled and difficult to follow.

    Another difference I encountered was a large cultural influence presented on the New Orleans website. I don't know if it was just put up for black history month or whether that news is posted on a regular basis, but there was definitely an emphasis on different cultures, particularly African Americans.

    The hours of the library also differed. The New Orleans Public library is open Monday-Thursday from 6 am-6 pm, and Friday and Saturday from 10 am-5 pm while Shreve Memorial Library is open Monday-Thursday from 9 am-9 pm, Fridays and Saturdays from 9 am-6, and also Sunday from 1 pm- 5 pm.

    Another major difference is that the New Orleans Public Library has many links for people to go to donate books or money to fund what was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina and surveys asking what readers and frequent library users would be most interested in reading. Again, I was unaware if that section of the website was always there or if that was only present because they were working on rebuilding the library systems due to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

    Other small differences between the libraries:
    Number of Branches: Shreveport: 20 New Orleans: 12
    Bookmobiles: Shreveport: 1 New Orleans: 0
    Outlets: Shreveport: 22 New Orleans: 13
    Public Internet Terminals: Shreveport: 278 New Orleans: 77

    After looking up the demographics of both cities, it is clear why certain resources are more available to the libraries. A lot of the information was probably wrong about New Orleans, though, because the census data was taken in 2000 (before Hurricane Katrina) and the city has greatly changed since then. Also, wikipedia informed me that the majority of the branches connected to the New Orleans Public Library were damaged or destroyed after the Hurricane, so some of the resources and books that may show up as available on the library site, may not actually be there. I noticed one program on the New Orleans site called the Yes! program which was supposed to help build literacy among people 16 and older after Katrina. There were many other programs similar to that as well as ways to help restore the library system and it's resources.

    Many of the demographics provided were similar (at least they were in 2000) between the two cities but the main difference between the two was the number of African Americans. Where Shreveport's population is about 50% African American, New Orleans is about 68%. That was reflected in the programs and services directed towards African Americans on the New Orleans Website and the focus on Black History Month, and the lack of such events and programs on the Shreveport website.

    Again, although the demographic information presented on the census page showed similar data for both cities, I'm sure many of those statistics have changed since the Hurricane. Percentages such as homeownership rate and people below poverty would probably have changed dramatically between now and Katrina. However, there was definitely a disparity in the amount of funding and resources available to people in Shreveport and the lack of resources presented on the website from New Orleans.

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  75. I compared Memphis and Boston...
    My first reaction between the two public libraries was in response to the discrepancy between the number of books & serial volumes. Boston has 8x more textual materials than Memphis! And we can compare Memphis' per capita statistic of 1.45 books per person to Boston's 15.06. Yet despite this, Memphis surpasses Boston's audio material by almost 20,000 units.
    One explanation could be that Boston has more than 100 colleges and universities (according to Wikipedia.) Geographically and historically, this makes sense, as Boston is known as the "Athens of America" because of its academic reputation predating the Revolutionary War. Memphis wasn't even founded until the 19th century. Additionally, Memphis' population is much more diverse, encompassing many low-income populations (categorized as "Big City Blues," "City Roots," "Low-Rise Living," and "Multi-culti Mosaic"... in general, very urban and blue-collar.)
    The cities' library websites also provide clues about differences. The sites are both aesthetically pleasing, using graphics, color, and video to attract users. Yet Boston advertises its own exhibits...the library has the dual purpose of museum too! Also, there is a long list of upcoming performances and talks with renowned groups and authors.
    Alternately, Memphis emphasizes small community-building events, like book clubs, storytimes, and workshops. And while Boston's library is concerned with tours and educating tourists on its history, Memphis is clearly geared towards Memphis citizens.

    I was really interested in seeing how the Memphis Library and Information Center compares to other libraries in the state, as it seems to be one of the largest. I picked the Knox County Public Library System because its number of visits was close to that of Madison's (I looked it up and both are roughly two million.) And while Knox County had about half of the staff and income of Memphis, its per capita statistics on collections and visits were about twice as much. This could denote that it is more of a network, servicing smaller communities. Knox County includes Knoxville as well as many suburbs. Importantly, about 30% of households had children under the age of 18--a major factor in the library's high circulation. The Knox county Public Library's website is very simplistic, and clearly advertises the "Kids' Library." This is especially a huge difference from Boston's very adult-oriented website. Overall, it is incredible how a library can simultaneously reflect and define its community!

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  76. Chiago Public Library vs Urbana Free Library

    Resources and Services:
    The Chicago Public Library has much more resources that it's counterpart in Urbana; 77 branches to 1 central Urbana library, 4.9 mil books to Urbana's 215,000, and 1,500 internet terminals to 57 for Urbana. However, this is to be anticipated as Chicago is the 3rd largest city in the U.S. with a population of about 2.8 million people. Urbana on the other hand is a small college town with a population of about 40,000 people. To fairly compare the 2 cities you have to look at the amount of resources per person. Both cities are nearly equal in the amount of people per library, both having 1 library serve about 40,000 people. Urbana beats out Chicago in almost all other categories, such as books per person (1.7 for chicago compared to 5.4 for Urbana) and internet terminals per person (1 terminal serving 1,866 in chicago and 1 serving only 701 in Urbana.)

    Demographics:
    Chicago is a very diverse city with a population at approximately 40% caucasion and 38% African American. Urbana, however, has a huge white population near 75%, and relatively few minorities. Both cities are near each other in capita with the majority of people for both cities falling in the 50,000-75,000 catagory. If anything, Urbana is slightly poorer than Chicago, which is surprising because the Urbana Free Library relies much more heavily on private donations than the CPL. Also, Since the UFL has only 1 branch to serve a large area, the CPL is much more accesible.

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  77. The two library systems I compared were the Boston Public Library and the Brookline Public Library. There are many resources that differ between the two systems. One resources is the internet. Boston has over 550 public internet terminals and Brookline has 62. But, both systems do offer wireless and Ethernet connections for those who have laptops. Furthermore, the Boston public library seems less focused than Brookline on its children’s and teens sections. Brookline goes so far as to have a teen program where teens come together and give the librarians new idea of what kind of material they are looking for. Teens can also go online and talk to one of the teen librarians the library hires. Brookline even states in their mission statement that “The Library will seek to instill in children a love of reading and an appreciation of the library's resources…” Boston seems to be more focused on adults, especially on their website, while Brookline has extensive children’s section of the website. In Boston there are numerous meeting rooms within the library that hold a large variety of programs. The staff from each library also differs. The Boston library system has over 490 on staff, 131 who are ALA accredited. Brookline has only 51 employees, 18 who are ALA accredited.

    One of the largest differences that can explain the differences in resources between Boston and Brookline is the population difference.
    Boston: 569,165
    Brookline: 56,188
    It seems obvious that Boston Library System would have a much larger circulation at 2,149, 145 (1,166,819 for the Boston branch alone), compared to Brookline with 1,262,147 circulation.
    Furthermore, Boston has 28 branches while Brookline has 2.
    Overall, it’s impressive that Brookline provides to less than a quarter of Boston’s population, but Brookline has circulation almost equal to half of Boston’s circulation.

    The ethnic makeup of the 2 cities is also quite different.

    Brookline: 81.08% White, 2.74% Black or African American, 0.12% Native American, and 12.83% Asian
    Boston: 58.4% White, 25.3% Black or African American, 0.8%Native American, and 8.7% Asian

    Though Brookline is more diverse, both seem able to provide for their patrons. Brookline has an extensive Russian and Chinese collection because of their recent immigrant influx.
    Another aspect that sets these two libraries apart is the income both receive at the federal and state level. Boston receives over 2.72 million the federal government and 26.6 million locally. Brookline receives nothing from the federal government and 2.99 million from that state. Boston seems to gain most of its advertisements from commercials releases showing the services the library can provide. Brookline is too small to release TV ads, and seems to depend more on word of mouth, which is effective because of its recent remodel of the library from 2002-2003.

    The Boston and Brookline public libraries serve two distinctive populations. Yet both seem to provide for their patrons equally well.

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  78. Los Angeles Public Library vs Palos Verde Public Library

    Resources and Services:
    -LA library is open 7 days a week, while Palos Verde library is closed on Sundays
    -Palos Verde focuses on book clubs, meeting rooms, blogs; while LA library focuses on internet resources, audio books, and word processing
    -Both libraries have online chats with librarians and have a list of events going on each month
    -LA library has an Espanol section, while Palos Verde does not

    Demographics:
    -LA consists of ~47% white, ~46% Hispanic/Latino, ~11% African American, ~10% Asian American
    -Palos Verde consists of ~78% white, ~3% Hispanic/Latino, ~1% African American, ~17% Asian American
    -LA's average income was ~36,000 per household
    -Palos Verde's average income was ~123,000 per household
    -LA's population that was married was 42%
    -Palos Verde's population that was married was 75%

    Conclusion:
    Comparing LA with Palos Verde is very interesting. Palos Verde is an extremely rich, educated community with country clubs and golf courses while LA is very diverse and multi-cultural. Both libraries do a good job focusing on the demographics of the area so that their library resources can relate to the community. Palos Verde's library only has 4 branches compared to 70+ branches in LA. The public library in LA has a lot more resources considering the amount of people in the city. The patrons use this library a lot more than the patrons of Palos Verde.

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  79. I choose to compare Miami, FL vs. New Orleans, LA.

    Firstly, it is important to note the differences between the two cities. Miami, traditionally is a large metropolitan area, currently the seventh-largest in the US. Miami is ranked as an important global city for its important trade centers in finance, commerce, media, etc and is even more important because it is a port city. It houses many banks, skyscrapers, is one of america’s cleanest cities (http://www.forbes.com/2008/03/17/miami-seattle-orlando-biz-logistics-cx_tvr_0317cleanest.html),. However it has a median household income in 2007: $29,075, which is very low compared to New Orleans which is $38,614. The average age of people in Miami is also higher by about 5 years than that of New Orleans. New Orleans is also has a busy port, but due to the recent disaster caused by hurricane Katrina, a majority of the area has been hit hard and even before the city has many poor “Wards” with lots of people living under the poverty line. That all being said what I found originally to be interesting is that many of the already small amount of libraries (13) in new Orleans had been affected by Katrina, and 4 have yet to be rebuilt. This affects the numbers I research greatly! What I found was that the staff in the New Orleans Library system was tremendously smaller than the staffing in the Miami Libraries. If you were to divide the amount of people who are within the service area of library by the service staff, Miami would have 3173 people per 1 library staff and New Orleans would have a whopping 27351 people per 1 library staff. I also found it shocking that the Miami Libraries have almost 3 times the book per capita than New Orleans, not to mention the same for programs as well as for children’s materials.

    I just basically got the Feeling the Miami Dade Library was superior in every sense, and aspect. Even just visiting the Websites, the Miami website had flash players and interactive website, while the New Orleans’ had a plain, quite frankly lackluster website, without interactive features and lacking excitement that is needed in today’s third places. Another huge thing is the Miami website catered to the 60% of its community that is Latino. It offered the website in Spanish, and had esl classes, etc. I also took a look at the classes and events, and it seemed there were more classes in Miami geared toward specific things, like computers, jobs, etc….with specific days in the week, while the New Orleans seemed to have more story tellers and book discussions, on odd days, and had classes put on by outside networks like AARP, instead of the library itself. This just made it seem like the Miami Library was more involved in the community on a scheduled day-to-day basis and the New Orleans Library was more of a host for other organizations to come in and be involved.

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  80. For the second part of this assignment I choose to compare Cleveland, OH & Columbus, OH. Using GIS(http://www.arcwebservices.com) services, I mapped the zip codes that both libraries were located in. I found that although the median age for Cleveland is 33.0 years, however 4 in 10 householders in are aged 65 years or older; the median age is 45.8 years and most of these residents live alone. The Median age for Columbus is 30.6 years and it seems, by the demographics that most are young, educated, working professionals living in suburbs. Also, it is worthy to note the total population for the zipcode in Cleveland is 4,340, while the total population for the zipcode the library is located in Columbus is 51,704. Also the median household income in Cleveland is $21,871 whilst the same for Columbus is $78,549. This demonstrates the trend that the people living in Cleveland are generally poorer and less well to do, than the prosperous resident of Columbus. Cleveland has more library branches than Columbus does by 8….this being said the following was shocking to me. Columbus has more staffing than does Cleveland! This just didn’t fit in for some reason and it could be accredited to the fact that there are more young people with young children which require more staff, while Cleveland is demographically older….I think this is based off the assumption that young people need more help in choosing books, with library programs, supervision, etc….whilst older people usually freely browse, socialize and study on their own. Cleveland has about double the funding that Columbus does as well as more circulation. However what matches up with the demographics is the amount of children’s books in circulation. It is 852,358 in Cleveland, and 5,370,574 in Columbus…even though Cleveland has about 4 times the collection per capita as does Columbus. This matches perfectly with the given demographics that most people in Columbus are younger people in suburban houses, almost implicitly meaning that they have many children. The census matches up with this assumption as do the library collection data.

    Finally I would like to close on a point that proves my above stated assumption that correlates the data that older people live in Cleveland and younger people with kids live in Columbus…meaning that the libraries in those subsequent areas cater to those subsequent crowds.

    If you go http://www.columbuslibrary.org/ (Columbus website), there are links on the left that include link for TEENS and link for KIDS….while if you go to http://cpl.org/ (Cleveland website)…..there is a link on the same left side of the screen for the Cleveland necrology file(which has files containing local cemetery records and newspaper death notices). This aids in proving my point!

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  81. The libraries I chose to compare were the Atlanta Fulton Public Library in Atlanta, GA and the Los Angeles Public Library in Los Angeles, CA. The Atlanta Fulton Public Library has 30 branches while the Los Angeles Public Library more than doubles this amount at 71 branches. The Atlanta Fulton Public Library has roughly 19 internet terminals per branch while the Los Angeles Public Library has substantially more internet terminals per branch at around 35. There are also almost double the librarians at the Los Angeles Public Library compared to the Atlanta Fulton Public Library. But all of this is expected when one sees that the population of Los Angeles nears 3 million while Atlanta is only at around 800,000. Both libraries are in big cities, and because of this, each appears to have equal (per branch, capita, etc.) of everything. When it comes to library visits and total circulation (per capita), both the Los Angeles Public Library and the Atlanta Fulton Public Library are almost identical at around 3.5 visits per capita and 4 circulations per capita.

    However, suppose I compare the Los Angeles Fulton Public Library with The Oakland Public Library in Oakland, CA. This library is home to a much lower population at around 431,634 people. But even so, the Oakland Public library has more library visits at around 6 people per capita compared to 3.5 for Los Angeles. This statistic could indicate that the people of Oakland depend on their library more, which may reflect socio-economic differences between the two cities. Comparing the internet terminals per branch, I see that the Oakland Public Library only has 10 internet terminals per branch compared to 35 for the Los Angeles Public Library. This would directly contradict my previous assertion. If the residents of Oakland depend on their library more for computer use, one would assume that there would be more internet terminals per branch (indicating that their library was much more technologically accessible). When it comes to demographics, Oakland has a much higher percentage of African-Americans than Los Angeles (35.7% compared to 11.2%), which could contribute to the increased visits per capita statistic. However, when it comes to Hispanics, Los Angeles has about 46.5% compared to only 21.9% in Oakland.

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  82. The two libraries I compared were the Atlanta Fulton Public Library and the Los Angeles Public Library. The Atlanta Fulton Public Library is comprised of 30 branches stemming from 1 central library, employing a little over 130 librarians who serves to a population exceeding 750,000. It provides 578 public internet terminals, 2,128,085 books which comes to 2.7 books per capita that services its population. Atlanta experiences fewer than 3 million library visits per year from their community and circulates material at a 4.27 per capita rate. In comparison with the Atlanta Fulton Public Library, the Los Angeles Public Library has a much greater number in population, librarians, and resources, but is smaller in their per capita statistics. Los Angeles services just under 4 million people in its community, having 71 branches and employing 425 librarians. The Los Angeles libraries provide about 2,500 internet terminals and 6,393,429 books. Their book per capita rate is actually much lower than that of Atlanta at 1.62 along with having a total circulation rate 3.74. Atlanta also receives a much greater income and expenditures per capita rate than Los Angeles, providing about thirteen more dollars per person. With its larger population numbers, Los Angeles hosts around more than 10 million library visits per year, but has a lower per capita rate at 3.29. To sum up, the Los Angeles community is much larger than that of Atlanta and thus provides more resources and services for its big community. Although it has smaller numbers all around, Atlanta is actually more effective for its community as its per capita rates in circulation, library visits, and income and expenditures are greater than that of Los Angeles.
    Additionally, I compared the Atlanta Fulton public Library to the Jefferson County Library located in Louisville, Georgia. The Atlanta community has a population of over 500,000 compared to Jefferson County which hosts fewer than 20,000 people, 3,000 of which live in Louisville. The ethnicity of both cities are both similar in numbers, but due to Atlanta being a huge metropolitan area, it has a much smaller median family income at $17,171 compared to Louisville which has almost double the median family income at $32,578. With Atlanta’s greater amount of population and lower income many families need the library system as a source of information which is highlighted by the larger per capita rates in almost all of the categories of the Atlanta Fulton Public Library. There are only 2 library branches in the Jefferson County area, which receives a much lower per person rate of funding and usage from its community. This suggests that the use of libraries is not as prevalent as many families are probably able to purchase their own means of information via computers or other media sources that many families living in Atlanta are unable to afford.

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  83. Comparing the libraries of Boston and Chicago was truly interesting. When it comes to prestige and resources, there are remarkable differences between these two systems, but interestingly there are common threads in their histories.

    Founding and Its Impact:

    Both libraries started with massive donations of materials. Having a tradition of intellect and education, Boston already had libraries during the 19th century. Mayors and aldermen petitioned and made annonymous, private donations, and eventually a lukewarm public and council took to creating the Boston Public Library System.

    Chicago's Public Library System also started with book donations. The Great Chicago Fire of 1871, prompted a man named A.H. Burgess to start an "English Book Donation" program that amounted to 8,000 books including some donated by Queen Victoria.

    Statistics:

    Boston is the largest public library system in the country with a total of fifteen million volumes. Chicago has an impressive collection itself at over ten million volumes, but when it comes to per capita, the Boston Library beats the Chicago Library by a large margin. For instance, when it comes to books, Boston has 15.06 volumes per person in their service area while Chicago has a dismal 1.69.

    When examining the numbers of computer terminals within the systems, it is clear once again that Boston has Chicago beat. On a per capita basis, for each computer in chicago a thousand more peopl exist than in Boston. Chicago..census..... Thus, one really questions that in this digital age where research more often occurs on online databases and computer competence is as much a part of literacy as is phonics, one wonders if in the Digital Divide Chicago citizens, especially those living in proximity of Chicago's poorest branches.


    -Funding:
    Boston spends double of what Chicago spends in its library system per capita. When it comes to funding sources, the Boston Public Library receives Federal funding while the Chicago Public Library does not. Due to the vast historical reserves including First Edition Shakespeare Folios, rare manuscripts, and even the entire personal collection of John Adams.

    -Cultural Events and Community Role
    Both the Boston and Chicago Libraries have good Children's programing. Becuase of the nature of Boston's collections, Boston is able to combine art, history, and literature in a way that resembles world class museums. Chicago lacks the collections that make Boston so famous, so they look to the great private institutions and cultural meccas throughout Chicago including th "Great Kids Museum Passport Program" that allows members to be admitted free to many attractions throughout Chicago. Chicago stresses its lectures on legal and financial issues to cater to a public that lacks basic literacy in these areas.

    -Innovation and Legacies:

    Both the Chicago and Boston public libraries have buildings on the National Register of Historic Buildings. These communities value their libraries as long standing pillars of knowledge and enrichment. In recent years, Chicago has enhanced its commitment to the Library system. Having in 1987 embarked on a project that brought a new central library to the city, and also having built new branches, rennovated others, and even replaced old store front libraries with spacious and modern facillities, Chicagoans value a library system that really reaches out to its citizens. Boston embarked on a similar program to build new branches in the late 19th century starting the first branch system. Today, Boston is trying to maintain world status with less. One major area in which the budget is hurting the Boston Public Libraries is their inability to hire enough conservators to maintaint the documents and manuscripts that they own.

    -Beyond Aggregate Statistics:

    The websites of these two Library Branches differ greatly. My first impression of the Chicago Public Library's site was that it was very aesthetically pleasing. The site gives a brief listing of events, a recomended book as well as a listing of new arrivals, and search linksm but I don't have a clue when the Chicago Central Library is open. I found a cumbersome pull down menu in which Harold Washington Central just happens to be listed, and has a page on which the hours are stated in a small barely visible box. The event listings include book talks, and informational classes on DTV and computer use, even a poetry writing workshop. Boston Public Library brings in many esteemed lecturers, something that Chicago has done in the past, but has a lack of in the current event listings. Boston's listing are more in depth for activities. They put more emphasis on drawing in the patron to their events. Also, with opera, authors coming in to the library, and professional society meetings. The kids seem to have just as many activities as the Parents including gaming clubs. Overall, Boston either is more prepared to really engross patrons or Chicago really lacks in the PR and advertising departmen; the answer may very well lie in the middle. Boston's population is more highly educated, and this is reflected in the Library events in the community.

    Interestingly, Chicago's central library is open Sunday afternoon while Boston's Central Library is closed on Sunday. Chicago has greater ethnic and religious diversity, and thus, they have a population that may not deem Sunday as a day of worship, so they may want to utilize library resources on Sunday.

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  84. I chose to research the similarities and differences between the libraries in Atlanta, Georgia and Cincinnati, Ohio. Atlanta is home to a community that is 61.4% african american and 33.2% White/Caucasian while Cincinnati is home to (much the opposite population) 28.9% african american and 67.8% white/caucasian. Both cities have similar unemployment rates (around 6%) and almost identical median family incomes (around $30,000). Even though they both receive similar incomes on average, the percent of people under the poverty line in Cincinnati is 41.5% and is only 21.1% in Atlanta. This difference is probably due to a higher cost of living in Cincinnati, Ohio.

    Library Statistics:
    Atlanta Fulton Public library and it's 30 branches (with a LSA of 786,727 people) have business hours that range from opening at 10, 11 am, or 12 pm daily and closing at their 6 or 8 pm. Most libraries had regular business hours on Saturday but only 10 of the libraries in the system are open on Sunday with the hours of 2-6.
    Cincinnati has 41 library locations that serve an LSA of 806,652 persons. Cincinnati only has two libraries that are open on Sundays, however, their regular day hours are open as long as 9-9 three days of the week.
    Both city's library systems offer tons of events and programs on an everyday basis, but Atlanta's seem to be more "all day, every day". Atlanta's programs also seem to be more art and entertainment based (i.e. Storytelling in rap form) while Cincinnati offers up a plethora of afterschool activites for kids that include everything from card games and video games to homework help and GED prep classes.
    Both libraries also offer a wide range of services to help the citizens of their cities. Atlanta names their services "Coping with Hard Times" and offers web links to financial assistance, finding a job, research a company, foreclosure information, etc. Cincinnati's services seem to be more "in-person" and include services like tax assistance, literacy programs, passports, special needs programs, and voter registration.
    Where the two cities' libararies do differ immensely is in the amount of items that are being checked out/utilized. Atlanta residents only checked out 2,366,299 items while those in Cincinnati used their cards to access 14,875,594 items!
    Overall, I think both library systems are working very hard to engage their patrons. Both offer long lists of daily activites (many free!), services to help those in need, and plenty of hours to browse for reading materials, surf the internet, or flip through a magazine. The only problem seems to be that the residents of Atlanta are not using their libraries to their full potential!

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  85. For the library comparison assignment, I choose to analyze the Anne Arundel County Public Library headquartered in Annapolis, MD and the Enoch Pratt Free Library headquartered in Baltimore, MD. One of the fist things I noticed was that the Anne Arundel Library had nearly twice as many library visits per capita, and the circulation was nearly five times greater per capita when compared to the Enoch Pratt Library, even though the Enoch Pratt Library serves more that 100,000 more people that the Anne Arundel Library. The collection of books, serials, and subscriptions at the Anne Arundel Library is significantly less (about a 2:1 ratio) than the collection at the Enoch Pratt Library, although their collection of video and audio is slightly greater than the Enoch Pratt Library. This is most likely due to the fact that the income of the Anne Arundel Library is about $14 per capita less than the income of the Enoch Pratt Library. The majority of the Anne Arundel Library income comes from local contributions, while the majority of the Enoch Pratt Library’s income is provided by a category labeled “other” with income from local contributions taking second. Enoch Pratt Library also employs nearly double the number of ALA/MLS librarians when compared to the Anne Arundel Library, and there are about 60 more public computers at the Enoch Pratt Library, despite the higher traffic at the Anne Arundel Library. This series of data really surprised me. Why does a library with more attendance have fewer resources available to them, and why do residents continue to find this library appealing? I found another peculiar comparison when looking at the children related statistics. The circulation of children’s material at the Anne Arundel Library is nearly five times that of the Enoch Pratt Library, while attendance to children’s programs is nearly 13.5 times less than the Enoch Pratt Library. Using the zip codes of the headquarters of these two libraries, a demographic comparison was also formed. According to the census data, the Annapolis area is populated by 70 percent white residents, while the Baltimore area is populated by 60 percent black residents. According to the social characteristics, Annapolis has 88% high school graduates and 43% with bachelor’s degrees or higher education. This is significantly higher than that of Baltimore, with 64% high school graduates and 29.4% with bachelor’s degrees or higher. It should also be noted that the income for individuals in Annapolis is much grater that in Baltimore. In fact, median household income is $64,000 compared to a mere $16,000. Although close in geography, the demographics of these two populations is significantly different, as is their libraries.

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  86. 1. What differences do you percieve between two libraries in terms of their resources and services?

    In comparing the Chicago Public Library and the Dallas Public Library, I found that just based on their respective main websites, the Chicago Public Library was more advanced. In terms of resources, both libraries had the same hours: Monday through Thursday 9am-9pm, Friday through Saturday 9am-5pm, and Sunday: 1pm-5pm. This makes both of the libraries resources available for the same amount of time. Both libraries offered free Wi-Fi and access to computers. However, Chicago's library website had a thorough search system in which you could look up books and search the entire catalog, while Dallas' website was smaller and more basic. In terms of events, Chicago also came out ahead. The only events I found on Dallas Public Library's website in general were free inventor workshops, adult programming classes, grantsmanship classes, Mu Phi Epsilon concerts, Tuesdays@central, and Book Club. When searching for Chicago Library's events, i came across the Lyric Opera Lecture, Money Sm
    art, African Dance Class, Chess, The ABC's of DTV!, Basic Computer Skills, Stories Before Bedtime, Rhyme Time for Little Walkers, Toddler Story Time, Adult Book Discussion... there were hundreds of events for February 5th alone! These differences could be because Chicago is a bigger city: 12,423 as opposed to Dallas' 3,348. I don't see the differences being due to race as both Dallas and Chicago are primarily white cities, with African Americans coming in second, and hispanic/latino coming in 3rd. Both cities are similarly educated as well, with percentages in the 90's of high school graduates, and percentages around 60% of bachelor or higher degrees. I would attribute Chicago's library advancement to its grander population.

    2. What relationship do you see between the demographics and the library resources and services when you compare and contrast two cities in the same state?

    To compare two cities in the same state, given the list of cities you gave us, I chose Austin and Dallas. Both demographics and resources/services were uncannily similar. I can conclude that libraries may be more similar if the libraries are closer geographically. This is a bold assumption, I would think though. For example, in Tracie D. Hall's Reading, "Race and Place" her city was "disadvantaged" while the town next to it had a library called the "white cathedral."

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  87. I compared Enoch Pratt Library in Baltimore and Anne Arundel County Public Library in Annapolis. First I will list the statistics:

    (Enoch Pratt is listed first)
    Branches: 21/15
    Public Internet Terminals: 358/290
    Legal Service Area Pop.: 633,100/503,300
    Total Staff: 459/288
    Total Income: $32,653,782/$18,732,298
    Income Per Capita: $51.59/$37.23
    Books & Serials: 2,751,603/951,064
    Library Visits: 1,414,473/2,815,127
    Total Circulation: 1,367,939/5,302,767
    Circulation Per Capita: 2.16/10.54

    1. What differences do you perceive between the two libraries in terms of their resources and services?

    The differences between these two libraries is actually quite remarkable. Enoch Pratt seems to be larger in every aspect: money, service area, collection, etc. However, the most important statistic when dealing with libraries is circulation. Here Anne Arundel dominates. It circulates 3,933,828 MORE than Enoch Pratt, while having a smaller service area. The difference per capital is a staggering 8.38! The only consolation that Enoch Pratt has is its public internet terminals. It has more access to information via the WorldWideWeb.

    In terms of their events, Anne Arundel has a variety of programs geared toward multiculturalism as well as different ages. Some examples are: Cuentos y Canciones, Babies In Bloom, Anime and Manga Club, Celebrating African Roots, AARP Tax Assistance, and Book Clubs. Enoch Pratt has many more. They highlight: Job Searching & Networking Strategies,Preschool Storytime, and Video Game-A-Thon. I would say overall that the two libraries have comparable events, except that Enoch Pratt has a larger magnitude of events.

    Demographics:

    (Baltimore is listed before Anne Arundel)
    Less than 5 yrs: 6.4%/6.7%
    18 to 65 yrs: 74.9%/75.6%
    65 and older: 18.7%/ 10.8%
    African Am: 418,951/74,299
    White: 205,982/399,388
    Hispanic: 11,061/19,867
    Asian: 10,207/15,591
    Median Family Income: $35,438/$91,071
    % Families below Pov. line: 18.8%/3.0%

    It is quite obvious that these two cities are extremely different. Baltimore has almost 20% of its families in poverty compared to Anne Arundel's 3%. Anne Arundel's median income is almost three times that of Baltimore. In addition, Baltimore has a much larger black and minority population.

    2. What relationship do you see between the demographics and the library resources and services when you compare and contrast two cities in the same state?

    This question asks me to connect Baltimore's minority and poverty with its low circulation and high funding. Just because these two things correlate doesn't mean that they are caused by each other. Enoch Pratt's high income could be just a result of funding to improve its low circulation. Despite this, the large black population in Baltimore possibly is more interested in Pratt's other services like events and internet access. Pratt's books per capita is more than double Anne Arundel's. This could be that there is a large population in Baltimore that does not use the library at all, not just that Anne Arundel's patrons read more. Enoch Pratt could also use its funds to benefit its patrons instead of trying to get more to become active in the library.

    Through all of this, it is evident that these two library systems are different in so many ways. Whether or not there are inequities is hard to say because some aspects of each library are better than the others. It is my opinion that it is almost impossible to judge if there are inequalities somewhere just by looking at statistics. It is imperative that one sees things first-hand and can experience the situations. Only after that can one determine where divides and differences are present.

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  88. Boston Public Library vs. Brookline Public Library, Massachusetts

    Differences in Resources and Services

     Boston has a collection of 8,539,059 books while Brookline only has 335,675.
     While Boston has 7,301 subscriptions to magazines, Brookline subscribes to 760 different magazines.
     The Boston Public Library possesses 74,213 videos and 57,033 audio materials. On the other hand, the library in Brookline has 16,211 videos and 26,937 audio materials. The moral of these top three sets of facts is that the Boston Public Library has far more materials than the Brookline Public Library.
     The Brookline library has a mere 62 public internet terminals. The Boston library has a total of 559 internet terminals.
     At the Boston Public Library, there is an annual attendance of 101,763 kids at their different children’s programs. In Brookline, only 12,047 children show up to such programs offered per year.
     Finally, 3,523920 visits are made annually by the Boston patrons, while 667,451 visits are made by the residents of Brookline.

    Relationship between Demographics and Resources/Services

    The facts listed above point to a conclusion that can be made. First of all, the Boston Public Library serves many more people. This is apparent when one researches each city individually. Boston has a population of 589,141 people and Brookline has a population of 57,107. That is nearly ten times less than Boston. This is the reason that the Brookline library has far fewer visits each year. This also explains why Boston has so many resources, and does not prove that there is an inequality between the two libraries.

    Another thing that I noticed about these two cities is that the ratio of upper class citizens is higher in Brookline than it is in Boston. The definition of upper class that I am using is a group of people with a higher education and higher salaries. In Boston, the percent of people who earned a graduate or professional degree was 15.3 percent, while in Brookline it was an astounding 45.3 percent! The percent of people who didn’t make it to high school in Boston was 9.1 percent compared to only 1.3 percent in Brookline. Also, the percent of people below the poverty line in Brookline is 4.5 percent, and it’s all the way at 15.3 percent in Boston. The results of this research are much different from the other case studies we have seen so far in this class. Usually the community receiving less resources and programs has a lower poverty level, less education and is not predominantly white.

    In conclusion, I believe this is not an example of a disparity in the library system. Although Boston has a larger amount of lower class citizens, it has a much larger library with more resources. The thing determining the amount of resources a library gets is solely the city’s population.

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  89. Chicago Public Library VS Urbana Free Library:

    I chose to compare the two Libraries in Illinois.

    As far as resources and services go I decided to compare the central library of the CPL system, The Harold Washington Library Center, with Urbana Public Library. Urbana is open 7 days a week, with its hours cut to 1-5 PM on Sundays. They boasts 75 employees and 19 fully internet capable computer workstations. Certain parts of the building have Wi-Fi internet access. They provide study rooms, meeting rooms, and an auditorium for public use.

    The central library in the CPL system boasts 9 floors of resources. It is actually in the Guinness Book of World Records for being the largest public library building in the world. In terms of the whole library system they boast 1,500 public internet terminals and a total circulation of 6.7 million throughout its 77 branches. Urbana's circulation is around 690,000 which is impressive for being a single building.

    These differences could obviously be explained by the fact that Chicago is the third largest city in the United States, with a population around 2.8 million people. Their funding is almost entirely local, and totals $90 million dollars.

    As far as differences in terms of demographics Urbana is home to The University of Illinois - Champagne, which has a student population of 40,000. Chicago is home to many Universities, but is also so large that these students are spread out over 78 different public libraries and even more University libraries. Urbana's population is younger than Chicago's with the majority of their population in the 18-24 year old range as opposed to the 25-44 year old age. CPL's website is much flashier and more modernized than Urbana Free Public Libraries. Another large discrepancy is the median income difference, Chicago's is around $90 thousand and Urbana's is about $26 thousand. I would argue that the large student population probably has a hand in the relatively large circulation that Urbana sees.

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  90. Shreve Memorial Library Vs. New Orleans Public Library:

    Service Comparison:
    When comparing these two libraries the first fact that really stuck out was the fact that the Income of the two libraries were very similar with New Orleans earning over eight and a half million while Shreve recieves just over nine and a half million. The kicker is that Shreve expenditures outpace the New Orleans Library by almost double the amount. 10 million is spent in Shreveport while only 6 is spent in New Orleans and it shows when you look at the resources available at each.

    The service population for Shreve Memorial library is about 250,000 compared to New Orleans 450,000. However, Shreve Memorial Library boasts higher staff numbers, more internet terminals, higher circulation rates in all areas, more books, periodicals, and videos available. Shreveport is utilized by its community. When looking at the websites both were of similar quality. New Orleans did have more events planned on their calender than Shreve did.

    Demographic Connections:
    This situation seems to follow the norm of poorer city poorer facilities. Both cities have a large number of ethnic minorities in residence, but the New Orleans communities have a much higher percentage of families living under the poverty line. Shreveport from my impressions seems like a much wealthier community with higher percentages of people with higher education. Although I'm not convinced that the demographics are the reasons for the difference in accessibility to information in these libraries because of the similar funding for both libraries.

    After analyzing both questions posed I'm lead to wonder why New Orleans does not spend that extra dollar on it's patrons. Shreveport expenditures outpace its income by a small amount and it shows in the sheer amount of resources available. There's a 2 million dollar gap in between the income and spending in New Orleans. If they were to invest some of that money into the library I imagine the New Orleans Public library could be much more similar from a standpoint of resources to Shreveport than it is currently.

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  91. Memphis Public Library vs. Knox County Library System

    Resources and Services:

    Some of the biggest differences in the two library systems in Tennessee are that Memphis has a service Population of 906,000 people while Knoxville only has 392,000 people in its service area. Yet, even though Memphis has more than twice as many people to serve, the comparison of books in the libraries collections is much closer, Memphis having 1,282,000 and Knoxville with 975,000 books. Another interesting difference between the two libraries is that although the Memphis library is larger, the Knoxville library has double the amount of total cirulation per capita. Other than the circulation differences, some of the other statistics seem relatively logical considering the libraries' size difference. Memphis' total income in almost double that of Knoxville, and their total expenditure is more than double that of Knoxville's. It seems that Knoxville's library is a greater asset to its community though, because their per capita spending is greater than Memphis' 28 dollars per person to 22 dollars. Clearly, since the total circulation per capita is so much greater in Knoxville even though the most of the ratios are comparable,(staff, internet terminals, and total income are all double in Memphis, which has twice as many people to serve) there must be a difference in the actual population using the library facilities. Although there is definitely a difference in the the populations using the libaries, i think it is important to point out that although Memphis is a much bigger system, both libraries actually have the same amount of branches in their respective communities, which could be why more people are able to access the library in Knoxville, and fewer in Memphis.


    Demographic connections:

    In Memphis the majority of people living in the city are black - 62.5 percent, while most of the rest are white - 31.9 percent. This is the complete opposite situation from Knoxville's community. There, 80 percent of the population is white, with 16.2 black. Also the median family income is 43,000 in Knoxville, compared to 31,000 in Memphis. It seems that the difference in income and race in the two communties strongly affects how much use the libary system gets. It is possible that the culture in Memphis just doesn't view the library as an important part of the community as much as Knoxville's population does. The people in Memphis, having a higher poverty level and lower incomes, also may not be able to access the library as easily as those in Knoxville. In conclusion, the difference in race definitely plays a role in how much the library is used, but the actual amount of libaries compared to poplulation in Memphis is less than half of that in Knoxville. The libraries in Memphis need to become more accessable to the popluation they are trying to serve, who could benefit greatly from the services the library can provide.

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  92. Dallas, Texas vs Detroit, Michigan

    Look at these two different library branches brought out a world of difference. The most obvious observation is Dallas is in the south and Detroit is in the north, well duh! But this brings out the difference in the racial aspect of the community. In the Dallas zip code of 75201, there are 693 African American people and in Detroit (48202) there are 18,351. A world of difference. This will ultimately show in what the library provides to its patrons. The white population is very similar: Dallas has 2,511 white/caucasian and Detroit has 2,147.

    Another major point that stood out to me was the unemployment rate. With the recent recession, unemployment is terrible everywhere. In Dallas, its 5.7%, while Detroit is at a staggerin 10.6%. This is of course with the auto industry taking a beating. This also related to how many families live below the poverty line. 15.6% of the people in Dallas live below the poverty line, while Detroit is at 40%. Just these three examples show how far apart these two communities really are.

    It seems that the library in Dallas is used more though. Its total circulation is 7,333,191 (6.06/capita) compared to Detroit at 914,709 (.97/capita). Even though Detroit spends more money per capita at $36.96, then Dallas does at $21.34.

    These communties are very different. And this was just a brief look into each city. We can already see how the community is Dallas utilizes its library compared to Detroit. Is this due to the high poverty level in Detroit and those people not having the means to get to the library? Is Dallas more in tune with their library? Maybe with the recent collapse in the auto industry, are people of Detroit using their library now to look for jobs? Its very interesting looking at these communities and comparing and contrasting them.

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  93. Baltimore and Chicago

    The Libraries:
    The Chicago library has a significantly higher budget than Baltimore. Chicago has a $90 million income with $80 million coming from the local government, while Baltimore has $32 million income with $13 million coming from the local government and $14 million coming from other sources. Not surprisingly, Chicago therefore also has a supply of about 5 million books, while Baltimore only has 2.75 million. Additionally Chicago has 18,000 subscriptions to Baltimore’s 9,000. The total circulation of the Chicago library system is 6 million, and Baltimore’s total is only 1 million.

    The people:
    Chicago’s racial background is 55% white, 32% black, 5% Hispanic, and 8% Asian, and Baltimore’s is 30% white, 62% black, 2% Hispanic, 5% Asian. In Chicago 91% of people 25 and older have high school degrees with 58% having a bachelor degree or higher. In Baltimore people have less formal education with 64% of people 25 and older having high school degrees and 29% having bachelor degrees or higher. Also 70% of people 16 and older in Chicago are employed, while only 47% of people 16 and older are employed in Baltimore. In Chicago 15% of people are living below the poverty level, but in Baltimore 41% of individuals are below the poverty level.

    Significance:
    Chicago’s high budget would allow it to include more resources and make the library more useful for all of its diverse population. The budget would also allow the library to study its demographics to provide the most relevant services, which helps explain its higher circulation and subscriptions. The lower employment rate and high poverty level in Baltimore also help explain its lower circulation level. Many people in Baltimore probably have more trouble getting to the library since they are less likely to be able to afford cars. The 41% of individuals below the poverty level are probably channeling their energy into getting out of poverty through working instead of using energy on self education. The poverty level in Baltimore also helps to explain why the local government cannot provide the same degree of funding. The higher education level in Chicago suggests that the people in this area have higher paying jobs and more free time than people in Baltimore and thus more time to spend at the library learning and socializing.

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  94. Baltimore MD 21201 V. Detroit MI 48202.

    It was quite surprising to compare the resources of these to library systems. Both systems are made up of roughly the same number of total outlets. Each system has one central library and two book mobiles. The Detroit system has 23 separate branches, while the Baltimore system has 21. The number of Internet stations in each system is also very close; Detroit has 387 stations, Baltimore has 358. The incomes of the two systems are also comparable to one-another. The net income of the Baltimore system was about $32 million, while Detroit was roughly $35 Million. Based on the similarities of these numbers alone one would probably guess that these systems serve relatively the same # of people based on the similarities of the systems. This however, is not the case. The service population for the Baltimore serves a population of roughly 630,000 people while the Detroit system serves about 950,000. Because of the similarities in systems and difference in service population, Baltimore obviously had much higher number in many areas when these two system are compared on a percapita level. Income percapita of the Baltimore system was significantly higher that that of Detroit, as were the per capita measures of outlets, Internet terminals and spending figures.

    I also found the comparison of the resources of these two systems to be very interesting. The Detroit had nearly 3 times the amount of books and volumes that the Baltimore system did, which one could expect from the greater population. Surprisingly though,was the fact that even with a smaller service population, the Baltimore system had nearly twice as many subscriptions, and a significantly greater amount of video and audio material. I think these figures tei very closely to the income #'s. Baltimore, with vastly greater per capita expenditures, seems to be better able to keep with the trends of the time and expand it's collection in many media formats, while in Detroit staple access to media still seems to be predominantly through books.

    The last,and what I deem to be the most interesting comparison is relation ship between the # of visits to each system and the circulation. The Detroit system had well over twice the # of annual visits to the library, both on a bases of raw numbers and on a percapita basis. On the other hand it was the Baltimore system that had the greater number of circulations both in raw numbers and per capita, which means that people in Detroit visited the library far more often that those in Baltimore, though checked out material on only about 25% of those visits while the baltimore percentage was about 97.

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  95. Anne Arundel County Public Library, Annapolis MD vs. Enoch Pratt Free Library, Baltimore MD


    Enoch Pratt in Baltimore receives the majority of its funding from the state; Anne Arundel receives the majority of its funding from local contributions. The visits to the Anne Arundel Public Library are twice that of the amount of visits to Baltimore, 5.59 visits per year compared to 2.3 visits. Yet, due to funding, the books per capita in Baltimore greatly exceed that of books per capita in Anne Arundel; 4.35 versus 1.89. Anne Arundel has longer hours, but both public libraries are open on Sundays. Another large difference in resources and services is that of internet access. Baltimore has over 350 internet terminals and Anne Arundel, with over twice the population size, has less, only approximately 285 terminals. The services that Anne Arundel offers are focused on children and community aspects; where as, the services offered by the Baltimore Public Libraries are adult focused. Many of the Baltimore branches have business centers within the library. These differences can be connected with the following demographic differences.

    The population of the Baltimore service area is approximately 15,000 individuals; where as, the population of the Anne Arundel service area is just over 50,000 individuals. A major difference in comparing the demographics is the population percentage that has graduated from high school; nearly 89% in the Anne Arundel area and only 64% in the Baltimore service area. The average age of the population in Baltimore is between 25 and 35 and the average age of the population in Anne Arundel is between 35 and 44 years. The racial demographic is also a large difference. The significant races found in both Baltimore and Anne Arundel is either African American or Caucasian. The population is approx. 65% African American and 30% Caucasian in Baltimore and 80% Caucasian and 18% African American in Anne Arundel. The Median family income is a large division between the two counties: approximately $35,500 a year and $91,000, Baltimore and Anne Arundel respectively. Finally the percentage of families below the poverty line is nearly 19% and only 3%, again Baltimore and Anne Arundel respectively.

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  96. Cleveland vs. Cleveland Public Library

    Statistics


    Cleveland
    -Male population 44.3%
    -Female population 55.7%
    -18 yrs of age and older 70.3%
    -African American population 93.2%
    -White population 4.8%
    -High school grad and higher 70.4%
    -In labor force 63.9%
    -Below poverty 12.4%
    -2 library branches
    -Library population 29,939
    -Total library income $2827892
    -Staff ALA accredited MLS 14.69


    Chicago
    -Male population 49.1%
    -Female population 50.9%
    -18 years and older 74.3%
    -African American population 12.3%
    -White population 75.1%
    -High School graduate and older 80.4%
    -63.9% in labor force
    -12.4% below poverty level
    -77 library branches
    -library population 2896016
    -total library income 90988539
    -staff ALA accredited MLS 276.59

    I was very surprised when comparing the Chicago library and the Cleveland library systems. The statistics for both cities had very similar male and female population statistics. However, when it comes to race, Cleveland had a predominately African American population (93.2%) and Chicago had a predominately White population (80.4%). Both zip codes had over 70% of people that had was a high school graduate or had higher education. Cleveland only had 2 library branches compared to Chicago's impressive 77 library branches. Chicago also had a lot more income ($90988539) than Cleveland ($2827892). In addition, Chicago had lot more staff that was ALA accredited MLS (276.59) compared to Cleveland (14,69). I attribute the higher accreditation to the amount of branches each city has. It was also surprising to see that the percentage of people in the labor force and the percentage of people below the poverty level were the exact same. Studying each city through my own research, I found that Chicago was more culturally diverse, artistically involved, and seemed to have more community involvement (which I expected) compared to Cleveland.

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  97. Comparing Chicago Public Library vs. Urbana Free Library

    Resources and Services:

    The Chicago Public Library is clearly a much larger library and has many more resources that its counterpart in Urbana. It contains 17 branches to 1 central Urbana library, 4.9 mil books to Urbana's 215,000, and 1,500 internet terminals to 53 for Urbana. It also has 2 bookmobiles, and 80 total outlets, while Urbana only had 1 central outlet and 0 bookmobiles. But this can be explained considering Chicago's library serves an area of 2,896,016 people while Urbana only serves 37,362. Therefore, Chicago also has a significantly greater number of librarians, materials, programs, and circulation.

    Demographics:

    Chicago is a very diverse and larger city with a population at approximately 40% Caucasian and 38% African American. The income per capita is $41,481 and there are 1,781 individuals in poverty. Urbana, however, has a huge white population near 75%, and relatively few minorities. The income per capita is $15,219 and there are 7,214 individuals in poverty. It is surprising that the Urbana Free Library relies much more heavily on private donations than the Chicago Public Library because it’s a lower-income city. Also, Since the Urbana Free Library has only 1 branch to serve a large area, the Chicago Public Library is much more accessible.

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  98. I compared and contrasted Atlanta Fulton Public Library and Boston Public Library. One of the most interesting things I noticed about these two library systems is that while the demographics of the societies are very different, the circulation, income and resources available at the libraries were very similar. The Boston community has a very high household income with mostly white residents, while the Atlanta area had a very low household income with mostly African American residents. The Atlanta library actually had more internet terminals than the Boston library and also had a slightly larger circulation rate. I was very surprised by these numbers, especially after comparing demographic data for the two communities.

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  99. Dallas public library vs Chicago public library.


    The population around Chicago public library area is about 4 times more than the population around Dallas public library.

    In Chicago, African American has a higher percentage which is about 31% than Dallas which is only about 17%.

    There are not too many differences between the education backgrounds in these two areas, but generally speaking the population in Dallas has bit higher percentage of their education levels than Chicago. For example, the percentage of people in Dallas who have Bachelor's degree or higher is 63.5%, higher than Chicago’s 58.3%.

    The collection in Dallas is 4,188,411.The collection in Chicago is 4,896,854. So Chicago public library has more books than Dallas public library.
    However, the total circulation in Dallas public library is 7,333,191, higher than Chicago public library which is 6,746,110.
    Moreover, Chicago public library has 77 branches while Dallas public library only has 23 branches.

    In conclusion, I was kind of surprised when I compared these two libraries which Chicago's population is much more than Dallas's population and it has more branches than Dallas. However, it turns out to have a lower total circulation than Dallas. Maybe it is because the education level in Dallas is higher than Chicago.

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  100. I compared the libraries of Dallas, Texas, and Austin, Texas.

    Dallas had a population of 1,240,499 (56.9% White, 23.8% Black) vs. Austin with a population of 743,074 (65.6% White, 9.1% Black).

    The Dallas library has 26 branches, is open 7 days/ week, has an interlibrary loan program, free wifi internet at all locations, several library events and classes, 2.5 million volumes, including books, magazines, videos, and cassettes. They have around 2.8 million visitors per year.

    The Austin library had 20 branches, several of which were closed 2 days/week, several youth and adult programs, and an interlibrary loan program. They had 3,264,727 visits in the last year and had a total of 3,373,408 items checked out.

    I noticed that alot of the same services and hours were avaliable, although Dallas has nearly twice the population of Austin. Both libraries had internet access, and multiple branches. The Austin library had far more visits, however, and I believe this could be because of several factors: location, education level, or poverty level.

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  101. I did my research on New Orleans, Louisiana and Newark, New Jersey. The differences are the obvious ones. In New Orleans, they have more racial diversity and a poorer population than in Newark and their library and resources aren't as good because their libraries aren't receiving enough money. In Newark, however, they are. There also seem to be more people in Newark, so their library is supported by more tax dollars. People are better educated in Newark with over 80% having their high school diploma. Newark's public library's income (some of it coming from the federal level, which New Orleans' does not) is over twice that of New Orleans'. Newark's library also has three times as many books as New Orleans' library (1,610,344 compared to 426,199.) However, more people use the New Orleans library then the citizens of Newark use theirs, and New Orleans has a higher circulation rate.

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  102. In comparing the Fulton County Public Library System in Atlanta, Georgia, and the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, we notice that both systems cater to similar demographics, although, interestingly, they are in reverse in some cases. Atlanta and Cincinnati have similar unemployment rates of about six percent. Also, the median family incomes are similar as well (about 30,000 dollars). However, the breakdown of race is where Atlanta and Cincinnati seem to mirror themselves. The Fulton County Public Library System caters to a community that is 61.4% African American and is 33.2% white/Caucasian whereas the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County caters to a community that is 28.9% African American and 67.8% white/Caucasian.

    Both the Atlanta library system and the Cincinnati system have many different branches. The Cincinnati library has 40 branches and the Atlanta system has only a few less: 34. Both systems also have many events. The Atlanta events seem to be centered more around children, with story times and classes to teach different things, like brushing teeth. The Cincinnati system seems to center around more adult activites, like job hunting and Facebook. The Atlanta branch also has many classes that help people learn English and the Cincinnati branch has an entire section of events geared towards getting teens interested in reading.

    The Atlanta public library also offers a very cool and unique service called Books for Babies which gives a tote to new mothers at the hospital which contains a copy of Good Night Moon and other things to promote reading to infants such as an application for the mother to fill out to get a library card. Cincinnati doesn't have a comparable program, but they do have Honor With Books where people can nominate someone who has really impacted their lives and then they win an award of some sort.

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  103. Chicago Public Library vs. Memphis Public Library

    The service area population for the Chicago Public Library is 3 times more than the populations for the Memphis Public Library. Taking this into consideration, the resources and services provided seem about equal. Chicago has about 3 times as many internet terminals and branches in the library system, and the circulation and children's program attendance are also about 3 times more than Memphis.

    The demographics are a little less equal as Chicago (60605) has a majority White population (55.6%) compared to African American (31.8%) and Memphis is a little more equal with White still the majority (50.29%) compared to African American (44.8%). Chicago also has larger Asian and Hispanic populations.

    The major difference between the two communities is the average income with Chicago nearly doubling Memphis, and the educational levels where Chicago has a much higher rate of high school/college graduates.

    The similarities continue with both library's websites providing helpful information and several of the same services (search boxes, library locators, "Ask a Librarian" option, guest speakers, recommendations, places to donate money to the library system, etc). The major differences in the library website are the Chicago Public Library website offers a spanish version, and in order to explore more of the Memphis Public Library's website, one must log in using a library card. This log-in system might discourage those who wish to use the resources the website has to offer, but do not have a library card.

    Overall, the Chicago Public Library and the Memphis Public Library seem to serve their communities well. Even though Memphis may not have the same high income or educational level as Chicago, both libraries offer resources and services that each population uses readily.

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  104. Chicago Public Library vs. Boston Public Library

    The geodemographics of each city were very similar:

    Chicago:
    American Dreams (29)
    Bohemian Mix (16)
    Money and Brains (7)
    Urban Achievers (31)
    Young Digerati (4)

    Boston:
    American Dreams (29)
    Bohemian Mix (16)
    Money and Brains (7)
    Urban Elders (59)
    Young Digerati (4)

    The total population of the Chicago area (60605) is 12,432 people. Of this population 51.7% of these people are male, leaving 48.3% to be female. Also 3.3% of these people are under 5 years of age, 92.5% are 18 years or older, and 9.5% are 65 years or older. A little over half of the people are White and about one-third are Black. The total population for the Boston area (02116) is 19,682 people. About 50.9% of this population is male and 49.1% are female. As for age, 2.7% of the population are under 5 years of age, 92.5% are 18 years and over, and 10.4% are 65 year and over. The majority of this area is White and about one-sixth of the population is Asian.

    As for comparing the libraries, the Chicago library has 77 branches, whereas the Boston library only has 28 branches. Also the Chicago library has 2 bookmobiles as opposed to the Boston library, which has none. The Chicago one has 80 outlets and the Boston one only has 29 outlets. The amount of public terminals in the Chicago library is 1,500 and the Boston library only has 559 terminals. However the legal service area population in Boston is only 569,165, whereas in Chicago it is 2,896,016. Concluding that the Chicago library needs more outlets, terminals, and such because it has to cater to a higher population. The legal basis for each library differs too. Chicago’s legal basis is “municipal government” and Boston’s is “non-profit association or agency.” The total of staff working at the Chicago library is not available, but for the Boston library it is 494.48 people. The number of “books and serial volumes” is 4,896,854 at the Chicago library. The Boston library has 8,539,059 “books and serial volumes.” However the amount of “audio materials” at Chicago’s is 382,890. At the Boston library that number is 57,033 “audio materials.” The total circulation for the Chicago library is 6,746,110. The Boston library has a total circulation of 2,419,145.

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  105. In comparing the Boston Public Library and the Brookline Public Library, there are many noticeable differences when it comes to the communities that these libraries cater to.

    The Boston Public Library serves a large and diverse population of 569,165 people, about 55% white, 26% black, and 8% Asian. The median household income in Boston is $48,729. In terms of education, roughly 79% have a high school degree and about 32% hold a bachelors degree or higher. In comparison, Brookline is a much smaller city, with a population of about 26,000. Brookline is not as diverse as Boston. About 85% of the residents are white and just 4% are black. The median household income in Brookline is significantly higher than Boston, at about $78,000. While 16.7% of families in Boston live below the poverty level, just 2.8% of families do in Brookline.

    In terms of the resources the library offers, the Boston Public Library has a much larger service area in comparison to Brookline. Boston has almost 30 library branches while Brookline has just a mere 2. In terms of resources, Boston employs almost six times as many librarians to work in its many libraries, 130 to Brookline’s 18. The Boston Public Library even has a 24 hour “ask a librarian” helpline. Boston has a wider range of funding for its libraries and more circulation per capita while Brookline receives mostly local funding and has a much lower circulation.

    When I looked at each of the libraries websites, it was clear that the Boston Public Library offered more community programs, exhibitions, children’s activities and workshops. Even though Boston has a higher poverty rate and lower education levels when compared to Brookline, the Boston Public Library is clearly more beneficial to its community.

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  106. Brookline Public Library Compared to Public library of Boston
    An immediate difference we can see between these two library systems is pure size and scale. The Boston library system has almost 30 branch libraries while Brookline has only two. Resources and accesses to variety of media, periodicals, and other information and news sources reflects this huge difference in scale in practically every area. Boston’s library collection contains more than 8.5 million volumes while Brookline’s system has just over 300,000, Media collections of audio and visual works, number of computer terminals, total income, staff members, and total number of annual visitors all reflect this difference in size. However there is a difference in affluence of the average person the different library systems serve. In Brookline the average users is twice as affluent and practically twice as likely to have received an undergraduate degree and three times as likely to have a graduate or professional degree. As a result of this difference in affluence tied to a smaller population of users the Brookline library system spends more per user than the Boston system does.
    From these differences in resources and services we can draw some relationships connected to the demographics of the area the respective libraries. Both communities are predominately white and the average person is not in poverty. Affluence seems to have a large effect on the differences between Brookline’s system and Boston’s. For a community practically a tenth the size of Boston the circulation of Brookline’s library is only a third of Boston’s and while at first glance the number of periodicals, media resources, and other differences named above seem sourly lacking in Brookline a look at the surrounding population shows a greater interest from the smaller community. Brookline’s system seems to have become a more integral part of a greater percentage of the community than the much larger system of Boston.

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  107. Chicago Public Library vs. Urbana Free Library



    Reserves/Services:

    - Chicago Public Library(CPL) has 77 Branch Libraries while Urbana Free Library(UFL) has none 

    - The total circulation for the UFL is about 690,000 while the CPL has a circulation of over 6.7 million.
    
- The CPL houses over 4.9 million books and serial volumes while the UFL has a measley 215,000 in comparison.
    - The UFL has 53 public internet terminals, while the CPL contains 1500, almost 30 times as many.
    -CPL contains more conference / meeting rooms than UFL.


    Demographic relationship:
    The difference in the size of the 2 libararies and the resources available to them is because of the obvious size of Chicago versus the city of Urbana. There are many more sources for contributions to the CPL than to UFL because of the massive population difference. Since Urbana is considered a college town, there are many other libararies located on campus, thus UFL has to compete with the other campus libaries, therefore it is much smaller than the CPL, since the town of Urbana doesn't need a huge libarary.

    Thus with Chicago's massive population and bigger pool for resources to fund libraries compared to Urbana's population of only 40,000, the CPL dwarfs UFL. Also since the University of Illinois has its own libarary system, the students dont feel the need to go to the UFL. Since the University has its own resources, it is one of the main reasons that the UFL is comparatively smaller in terms of resources and physical size than the CPL.

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  108. Boston Public Library vs. Public Library of Brookline:

    A significant difference right off the bat I noticed between these two cities is the population: Boston is home to about 608,352 residents and Brookline to 54,809 residents, a factor that undoubtedly shapes the preferences, circulation, and access to each library. The ethnic diversity is also noteworthy in each city:In Boston, around 50% are white, 25% are African American, and about 8% are Asian, whereas in Brookline, about 80% of the residents are white, 2% are African American, and about 12% are Asian. GIven the difference in population, Boston maintains 28 branches to adhere to a larger community whereas Brookline has only 2, a seemingly appropriate number. Also noteworthy is that Brookline is/was home to celebrities like Harry Bird, JFK, and Conan O'Brien!

    The total circulation and income in each Library differs significantly but seems to proportionally represent the population of each city. Both have adequate amounts of Children's materials and services and circulate over 1.1 million books per year. They also both have internet terminals and outlets.

    After viewing each library's websites I noticed that Brookline's website appears more personal, and seems to appeal more to a younger crowd, although it still offers events such as "Senior Cinema". The website uses warm colors that appeals to the eye and features few tabs at the top, two being "teens" and "kids". Boston's website, on the other hand, is a very busy website, with many links that seem jammed all onto one page. Given the demographics of Brookline and Boston, both of these websites further establish the library's intended target residents, as Boston must appeal to not only a broader community, but a more ethnically diverse community. Brookline, however, has a much fewer residents, most of who are White and Middle- to Upper class.

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  109. Enoch Pratt Free Public Library, Baltimore MD vs Anne Arundel County Public, Annapolis MD

    The Enoch Pratt library and the Anne Arundel library differ is many aspects of their resources and services. The first major difference is the fact that the Anne Arundel public libraries had an larger amount of the circulation of children's materials than that of the Enoch Pratt library. An interesting aspect to that fact is that even thought the Anne Arundel library has a larger circulation of childrens materials, the Enoch Pratt library has a significantly larger number of attendence in children's programs. The number of library visits per capita is 5.59 for Anne Arundel and 2.23 for Enoch Pratt free library. The Anne Arundel library recieves twice the amount of yearly visits than Enoch Pratt but has a larger population service area than that of the Baltimore branch.

    One difference in the demographics is that Anne Arundel has a significantly larger percentage of whites living in the population compared to Baltimore where 65% of the population is black. As it was mentioned in the online lecture 4, the amount of library use is directly correlated the the amount of education. This aspect is seen in the Anne Arundel branches where most of the population has recieved a college degree. The median salary in Anne Arundel is almost three times the amount as salaries earned in the Baltimore area.

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  110. Towns: Detroit, Michigan 48202 and Chicago, Illinois 60605

    Here are the raw facts on the two libraries:
    Detroit:
    Central Library: 1
    Branches : 23
    Bookmobiles: 2
    Total outlets: 26
    Public Internet Terminals: 387
    Legal Service Area Population: 951,270

    Chicago:
    Central Library: 1
    Branches : 77
    Bookmobiles: 2
    Total outlets: 80
    Public Internet Terminals: 1,500
    Legal Service Area Population: 2,896,016

    The Chicago area library system services about 3.044 times the amount of the Detroit library system, and the numbers for the Detroit library system are near a third of the Chicago system. Therefore, the two branches cover the two populations nearly at the same scale for all of the statistics.

    Differences in Resources and Services:
    -The two libraries offer similar tax services around this time of the year but they differ in the majority of their events. The Detroit Public Library offers more entertainment where the Chicago Public Library offers more educational classes. The Detroit library has regular Jazz and “Noontime Concerts” while the Chicago Public Library offers discussions for professionals, aspiring entrepreneurs and other personal success classes.

    Demographic and Relationship:
    The Chicago Public Library offers discussions about the digital divide in libraries and appears to have a more open relationship to the public than the Detroit Public Library. The Chicago Public Library's website is far more professional than the Detroit Public Library so it is possible that such discussions occur in Detroit but they are only advertised at the library itself. Furthermore its quite obvious when you visit the Chicago Public Library that it is targeted toward younger individuals (from preschool to 20').
    The median income of the residents of Chicago is about 3,500 dollars more than the Detroit residents. The most surprising statistic is the race of the citizens in the two cities. In the 2000 census data 81.55 percent of the individuals in Detroit were black, that is far different than the 36.77 percent of blacks in Chicago's 2000 consensus data. Both cities have had significant declines since the 1950s in their population and Detroit's unemployment and economy has suffered greatly from the decline of the major auto manufactures that employ most of Detroit's population.

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  111. I compared the "Memphis Public Library and Information Center" in Memphis, TN 38111 and the "Lawson McGhee Library" in Knoxville, TN 37902. I found these two to be strikingly similar. They both offer extremely nice websites with links to databases, calendars of many events, and special sites for teens and kids. The Memphis library seems to be extremely active and had a lot of events to offer. The Laweson McGhee Library emphasized children and teens more heavily and offered resources such as "homework helper page" and "fun and games".

    Statistically, Memphis has a smaller population of approximately 45077. Of this population, around 30% are between the ages of 25-44 years old. Around 20% are between the ages of 5-17 years old. These ages may reflect why the library is able to be so active. Demographically, the city is made up of majority of African Americans and White/Caucasians.

    On the other hand, Knoxville has a population of 173890 (more than three times that of Memphis). They are located near the University of Tennesee at Knoxville, Pellissippi State Technical Community College, and Johnson Bible College. In this city, the highest percentage of the population is between the ages of 25-44 years old, followed closely by both 16-24 years old and 45-64 years old. Reflecting this, the library offers resources such as public access computers, and free computer workshops in a "low key setting" for ages 12 and older. This is a great tool for adults and seniors who may not have some necessary computer skills. In this city, 80.2% are white while only 16.4% are African American.

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  112. Chicago Public Library (specifically the Harold Washington Library) vs. Urbana Free Library

    Resources/Services
    -The Chicago Public Library has 77 branches, one of which is the Harold Washington Library; Urbana has no branches
    -HWL is 9 floors, while UFL is 3 floors
    -The children's section at HWL is an entire floor (largest collection in Chicago), but only part of a floor at UFL
    -Total circulation for the Chicago Public Library System is 6.7 million; 687,000 for UFL
    -The hours for both are similar, with UFL being open one extra hour on fridays and saturdays
    -Many more facilities and halls to rent out at HWL

    Demographic and Relationship
    -Chicago's population is obviously much larger than Urbana's. Although the zip code that the HWL has a population less than half of Urbana's, people from all over Chicago go to the HWL because of its size and great collection.
    -A large majority of Urbana's population is college kids or young adults just out of college. As a result, they can go to other libraries on campus.
    -HWL has about 30 times more public internet access terminals that UFL, which makes sense according to the number of people that go to HWL.
    -THe median family income is also over twice as much in the 60605 zip code of Chicago than in Urbana. This helps to explain why HWL's resources are so nice, since more people can donate money.

    In conclusion, these statistics make a lot of sense when looking at the populations of the cities. Since people from all over Chicago, not just 60605 go to the HWL, it makes sense that it is 9 floors and has a lot more books and total circulation. Also, since a large majority of the population is families in Chicago, whereas it is mostly young adults without children in Urbana, the large discrepancy in the children's sections makes sense.

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  113. New Orleans Public Library vs. Boston Public Library

    The Boston Public Library has many more books per person, about 15 times more. This library is also funded more by the people of the community whereas the New Orleans has most of its funding from the government. However, more money does reach the Boston Public Library which is probably due to a higher circulation rate. The Boston Library also has more visits, staff, branches, and resources.
    The demographics of the areas may play an important role. Boston is around 70% white and New Orleans is about the exact opposite with around a 70% black population. Boston also has more higher educated people and a higher average income.

    For my second comparison I decided to stick with New Orleans and research the Baton Rouge Public Library system. The Baton Rouge system has more branches and includes a used book store that is open one day a week. This library system also is open, on average, later.
    Demographics:
    Even though these two cities are about an hour and a half drive, each has different demographics. While New Orleans is predominately black, baton Rouge has about an equal population of both (51% White, 45% Black). Baton Rouge also has a higher population of high school graduates and bachelor's degrees. Both Library websites have accessible links to activities and information about the branches. However, what I noticed to be an interesting feature that the Baton Rouge Public Library system had was a number so that someone can text a question to a librarian.

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  114. The two library systems that I researched was the New York City library system and the Chappaqua library system. The New York City library system, servicing a much larger group of people, lacked the resources of the Chappaqua library. The demograhics of the New York City library wer characterized by less affluence and much greater minority presence. This correlation between lower income levels, greater minorities, and a lack of library resources seems to be common. On the other hand, the region of Chappaqua, a much more wealthy suburb, had a library that had much more resources available to it's customers, even though it serviced much fewer people. The chappaqua library serviced mostly caucasian individuals and those with a relatively high income. The Chappaqua library had more computers available. At the Chappaqua library, more books are taken out per person then in the New York City system, which may be caused by the lack of resources available to those in New York City.

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  115. I compared the public libraries of Chicago, IL and Urbana, IL. These two libraries showed vast differences in the communities they served. Since Chicago is one of the largest cities in the United States, it's only natural that it would have more funding, resources and diversity. The Chicago Public Library has a circulation of around 6.7 million, a rough collection of books around 4.7 million and 77 branch locations. As I was looking at the CPL website, I was astounded at how helpful it was. The website could be changed in multiple languages and provided an innovative search engine. The events and programs per day went on for pages and applied to all peoples-- job seminars, cooking classes, "Mommy and Me," volunteer opportunities, salsa lessons, etc. My favorite part of the website was the teen section. The teen section provided everything a teenager could need- study tips, dating advice, college preparation, ways to stay healthy, money saving tips, etc.

    On the other hand, Urbana caters to a smaller community. In the description of its demographics, Urbana was said to have less people with children living there and a poorer community all together. Urbana had a circulation of around 690,000, total books around 215,000 and one central location with no branches (which means less resources and less funding). The website for the Urbana library was a lot less "flashy" and digitized compared to the CPL website; the Urbana website served more functional purposes. The prominent thing I noticed on the calender for the Urbana library was the amount of events for parents with young children.

    In conclusion, Chicago has a more diverse population- first Black, White and then Hispanic (in order of percent) and Urbana is White, Black and Hispanic. Due to the mere size of Chicago, the funding it receives allows for more resources to be housed than Urbana.

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