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Early last year, we joined a national project with 10 other public libraries to use “big data” techniques in a way individual libraries can’t accomplish by themselves. The intent was to find out who the libraries’ core customers are, whether and how they differ from other library customers, and whether and how they differ across the country. We will use the results to better understand and serve our existing customers and as a tool to help us remain nimble and relevant in reaching and recruiting more residents to use our free resources.

More than 67.4 million checkouts by 4 million library cardholders were analyzed, out of a population of 7.8 million people served by the 10 libraries in urban, suburban, exurban, and rural locations in Illinois, Colorado, Wisconsin, Texas, Washington, Nevada, Nebraska, and Kansas. We learned that public libraries have broad and diverse community support—library core customers are literally all over the map. They mirror the unique, hyperlocal diversity and complexity of people from all walks of American life.

Core customers are defined in this study as the most active cardholders who check out the most items the most frequently. The study was funded by a 2014 National Leadership Grant from the Institute for Museum and Library Services and was led by the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District in conjunction with CIVICTechnologies. If you want to read more, you can find the executive summary and full report at civictechnologies.com.

We first started working with CIVICTechnologies in 2009 to help us understand the demographic shifts happening in Skokie and see whether there were any parts of our community we weren’t reaching as well as others. One of the initiatives that came directly from that work is featured as a case study on page 14 of the project report. We intend to keep learning as much as we can about changes in our community to ensure that we keep meeting your needs for many years to come.