Executive Summary
The VITAL (Value and Impact of IT Use in Public Libraries) Project has developed transferable methodologies and gathered sample data to provide answers to the question, "What is the value and impact of the provision of end-user access to IT-based services in public libraries?". IT-based services in this context go beyond online public access catalogues to include access to the Internet, including the World Wide Web, email services, word processing and the like.
The background to VITAL lies in the rapid expansion of information and communication technology (ICT) based services in public libraries, led by a number of innovative authorities but given national impetus through a series of initiatives, notably the Library & Information Commission Report New Library. This expansion is taking place within the framework of a number of broadly-based government policy initiatives, including emphasis on lifelong learning for all citizens, on social inclusion and on modernising government. The roll-out of Internet access and other IT-based services has been accelerated through the work of the People's Network Team within Resource: the Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries, through funding for content creation, through a national training programme and through the allocation of funding for network infrastructure.
VITAL had a twin focus. Its main raison d'être was to produce methodologies which were capable of wide application in public library authorities and which would provide data on whether these developments offered value to users and had positive, or indeed negative, impacts upon them. By developing such methodologies, and successfully trialling them in three large authorities, the VITAL team succeeded in this first objective. The methodologies themselves have been published in a separate Workbook.
The second major focus lay in the gathering of indicative data to enable some conclusions to be drawn about value and impact. Clearly this effort could only be limited in scope: VITAL was a small, eighteen (+ five unfunded) month project which had a different major focus. Nevertheless the test implementations of the methodology gathered real data which, we believe, is sufficient to provide indicative answers. We argue that they indicate that where such services are available they are valued by their users, by public library users who do not happen, for whatever reason, to use those particular services and by citizens who do not themselves make use of the public library. While we are not in a position to comment on the value for money of the investment that has taken place, it is to date on such a modest scale that it would appear that investments are generating a significant value.
These summary findings are evidenced by the comments of individual users who were interviewed by us in each the participating authorities (Birmingham, Cheshire and Cumbria). Some of these comments are reproduced in the body of this Report, but the following give some idea of the general feelings which were expressed:
Libraries are the key to access for those without a computer at home.
Libraries should be modern and provide computer facilities as part of helping the community.
Users did, however, express the need for balance:
I still feel we need a good range of books. IT services must not take over.
Less than 1% of the library users and only 4% of the library non-users in our sample regarded ICT based services in the public library as unnecessary. The non-users were, indeed, highly supportive of these developments. Typical comments were:
Would use library if home computer not available.
Maybe in the future, when I have more time (e.g. when retire)
Having said that, there is evidence that non-users do not immediately think of public libraries as the place to go for Internet access, and that much greater efforts are needed to publicise these services:
I will use the libraries now….
Publicity required and advertise in community languages…
The Report concludes with a number of observations and recommendations, including the need for:
- widespread implementation of VITAL-style studies by library authorities to gather a broad range of data on value and impact in this area;
- further work to develop methodologies to enable comparisons to be made between authorities
- further work to ensure that findings are longitudinally valid;
- exploration of a narrower focus to examine how these issues vary at branch and local community level within an authority;
- emphasis on the challenges for local library authorities which arise from the provision of networked services through regional, national and international service groupings over which the individual library has little control;
- studies of the issues of value and impact within the broader range of memory institutions, and the appropriateness of particular IT-based services for each of these sub-sectors;
- work, within the Best Value and Annual Library Plan contexts, on the value for money of this type of service provision.
Overall, however, the VITAL team have drawn the conclusion that, on the evidence currently available, the provision of end-user IT-based services in public libraries has positive impacts on the communities and individuals served. This suggests that continued, and indeed accelerated, investment in such services would be justified.
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