News

August 7, 2007

Study: Libraries offer big returns

Research assesses $16 million benefit to local communities.

By Mark Guydish mguydish@timesleader.com
Education Reporter
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Luzerne County public libraries are a private-market powerhouse, adding more than $16 million to the economy in 2006, according to a new, federally funded study. Not bad for a system that costs taxpayers a total of about $3.7 million, proponents argue.

The study was commissioned by the state Department of Education’s Office of Commonwealth Libraries and was funded with about $110,000 from an annual federal grant, said Glenn Miller, Pennsylvania Library Association executive director.

The bottom-line conclusion: Pennsylvania public libraries provide a “return on investment” of $5.50 for every $1 of taxpayer funding.

“We knew intuitively and from experience that public libraries play a key role in a community’s vitality and economic activity,” Miller said, during a Monday meeting with The Times Leader editorial board. “The question was how to measure it.”

The answer: Mimic studies already done in other states, particularly Florida, said Sarah Aerni, a member of the research team based at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and at Pittsburgh University. They conducted a statewide phone survey of adults using randomly generated phone numbers, asked detailed questions of visitors to 20 libraries of various sizes and locations, and asked institutional library users – business people, college students – questions about their library use and what they would do if the library didn’t exist.

All of it was geared toward figuring out how much people spend by using libraries, and how much they would have to spend to get what they wanted if the library weren’t there. The study also tried to calculate how much money library visitors spend at nearby businesses – coffee shops, say – that they might not patronize if the library weren’t there.

The study determined that, statewide, library users spend about $683 million to use public libraries – mostly for transportation. Yet it’s a bargain. They would need to spend a total of $1.6 billion to get what they were seeking if the library weren’t there.

So, as the study puts it: “It would cost public library users $964 million more to obtain needed or desired information if there were no public libraries.”

Helping the economy

Libraries save users another $84 million by providing information they otherwise would not be able to find on things like home repair and bargain shopping.

Libraries themselves spur the economy through wages paid to employees and the purchase of equipment and supplies. If all the state’s public libraries closed for a year, that would mean a total of $248 million never pumped into the economy. And businesses around the library would lose $80 million in sales as well.

To get that bottom-line return on investment, the study added up all these estimated losses – which Aerni stressed were very conservative calculations – to total nearly $1.4 billion statewide, then divided that by the total tax money used to support libraries – $249 million.

County libraries’ finances

Osterhout Free Library Executive Director Diane Suffren provided some local numbers for the equation. Luzerne County’s 10 libraries get a total of $263,419 from municipal governments, $820,427 from school districts (most of which is paid from the Hazleton Area School District to the Hazleton Area Public Library) and $1.5 million from Luzerne County. That last one is a recently added source. The county came through with promised annual money shortly after the state slashed library subsidies in half in 2003.

All told, in 2006, Luzerne County libraries took in a bit more than $2.2 million in local tax money. Using the $5.50 return for every dollar, that means they put $12.2 million back into the economy. Add $1.5 million in state funding and the return on investment climbs to more than $20 million.

The study is important, Miller said, because it puts a dollar value on public libraries at a time when funding has remained relatively flat. Pennsylvania historically has been parsimonious in supporting libraries through state or local tax money. The state did boost its support of libraries in 2000 after a scathing series in The Philadelphia Inquirer showed how paltry Pennsylvania library support was compared to other states.

But in 2003 the amount was cut nearly in half, and only recovered to pre-2000 levels – about $75 million – last year, with that amount bumped up by $250,000 this year. Comparing the amount spent per person, the state now ranks fifth in the nation.

Unfortunately, Miller said, local contributions have not risen by much. The state ranks 43rd nationally in the amount of money contributed per person to libraries by local governments.

The stagnant funding comes during a long stretch of steady growth in library use, Miller said. One reason is that, despite the explosion of Internet growth, people have come to consider the library one of the most trustworthy sources of information. Suffren said libraries have transformed themselves to serve wider community needs, from preschool help to adult computer training. And, she noted, far more local information is available at libraries than on the Web.

Reflecting those changes, Miller noted one of the most surprising findings of the study was that one of every four library users goes to the library simply for entertainment. Most come seeking other things such as family research, job-related or financial information, and education.

On the Web

Go to www.timesleader.com to read the whole report.

Mark Guydish, a Times Leader staff writer, can be reached at 829-7161.

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