Youth appeared to enjoy universal access to the Internet from a variety of sources: 100% of the youth reported that they had access to the Internet from one or more locations including 85.8% from home, 78.2% from the house of a friend or relative, 66.2% from school (either from the classroom or computer center), 58.5% from the school library media center (SLMC), 24.7% from the public library, and 15.7% from some other place.
A very large majority of youth enjoyed multiple sources of Internet access: 90.3% had at least two sources of access while 68.8% had three or more sources of access.
The percentages of youth who had Internet access at home were lower among females, youth with an overall grade less than "C", Black youth, youth whose parents' highest level of educational attainment was high school graduate or less, youth attending middle schools, youth attending public schools, and urban schools.
The digital divide for youth, at least in terms of home access to the Internet, still exists. Compared to other youth, smaller percentages of Black youth, youth in urban areas, youth whose parents were less educated, and youth who were not performing well in school had access to the Internet at home.
The most frequently used sources of Internet access were at home (73.3%), at school (37.4%) including in the classroom or computer center (22.9%) or the SLMC (14.5%), and at the house of a friend or a relative (36.8%).
While one quarter of youth (24.7%) accessed the Internet at the public library, the public library, compared to other sources of Internet access, was used frequently by the lowest percentage of youth (5.4%), that is, the public library was the least frequently used source of Internet access used by youth; and, for youth without Internet access at home, the public library was the least used alternate source of access (3.9%) except for "some other place," and the least used sole source of access (0.2%) except for "some other place."
However, the public library is still serving youth from the "have not" side of the digital divide. Compared to other youth, higher percentages of Hispanic youth, Black, Asian and Native American youth, youth in urban and suburban areas, and youth whose primary language at home is a language other than English accessed the Internet at the public library.
A substantial majority of youth, 69.5%, visited the public library during the school year in which the survey was conducted with 30.9% of youth visiting the library frequently (once a month or more) and 38.0% of youth visiting the library infrequently (a couple of times a year).
Among the 30.5% of youth who reported that they had not used the public library during the current school year, 22.7% indicated that they had used the public library in a preceding year, and 6.7% reported that they had never used the public library.
The percentages of youth who had visited the public library were lower among male youth, youth with an overall grade less than "C", Hispanic youth, Black youth and youth of mixed racial ancestry, youth whose parents' highest level of educational attainment was high school graduate or less, youth attending public schools, and urban youth.
There was no difference in the percentages of youth in middle school (69.6%) and youth in high school (69.4%) who visited the public library. However, high school youth visited the public library less frequently than middle school youth: 39.8% of high school youth visited the library once a month or more compared to 49.3% of middle school youth.
Having Internet access at home did not significantly affect whether youth visited or did not visit the public library: 68.3% of youth without Internet access at home reported visiting the public library, while 70.4% of youth with Internet access at home (who used it) reported visiting the public library.
Youth who used the Internet at home visited the library less frequently than youth who did not have Internet access at home: 17.0% of youth who used the Internet at home visited the library once a week or more compared to 31.7% of youth who did not have access to the Internet at home. Conversely, these data also indicate that youth who did not have Internet access at home visited the public library more frequently than youth who had Internet access at home. Unfortunately, given that there appear to be no pre-Internet data from a population of youth estimating youth's frequency of visiting the public library with which to compare these results, it cannot be determined if Internet access at home resulted in less frequent visits to the library or if lack of Internet access at home resulted in more frequent visits to the library.
When youth visit the public library, 37.6% most often engage in activities related to school work, 26.9% most often engage in activities related to recreation, and 9.0% most often engage in activities related to obtaining personal kinds of information.
Youth who used the Internet at home: 1) used the public library less frequently for personal kinds of information than youth who did not have access to the Internet at home; 2) used the public library for school work activities just as frequently as youth who did not have Internet access at home; and 3) used the public library for recreation just as frequently as youth who did not have Internet access at home. These results indicate that having Internet access at home (and using it): 1) might have diminished youth's need to use the public library for personal kinds of information; 2) did not adversely affect youth's use of the public library for support of school work; and 3) did not adversely affect youth's use of the public library for recreation activities.
Youth who used both the Internet and the public library reported higher overall grades than youth who used just one or the other or neither: 50% of youth who used both the Internet and the public library reported a grade of A compared to 35.8% who used just the Internet, 27.5% who used just the library, and 30.4% who used neither.
The frequency with which youth visited the public library was positively related to the borrowing of materials (books and other kinds of media) for fun. This relationship held both for youth who had Internet access at home and used it and for youth who did not have (or did not use) Internet access at home. While, for both of these groups of youth, use of the Internet at the library was also significantly related to frequency of library visits, the use of the Internet at the library, as a correlate of frequency of library visits, was very much overshadowed by activities related to the borrowing of materials.
In general, youth evaluated the service characteristics of the Internet more positively than they evaluated the service characteristics of the public library. The Internet was rated higher than the public library for ease of getting there, availability, ease of use, adequacy of information available, expectation of finding what is needed, getting a digital document (versus a paper copy), up-to-dateness of the information, fun, being able to find information without assistance, enjoyment of surfing/browsing. The public library was rated higher than the Internet for accuracy of information, helpfulness of librarians (versus help pages), and protection of privacy.
Regardless of these more positive opinions about the Internet, there was no relationship at all between youth's more positive opinions about the service characteristics of the Internet and youth's frequency of visiting the public library. In effect, youth's more positive opinions about the Internet did not adversely affect the frequency with which youth visited the public library.
Given that there does not appear to be any existing estimates of the percentage of the population of youth who visited the public library prior to the wide-scale availability of the Internet (ca. 1995), it is unfortunately not possible to compare the estimates obtained from this survey to any pre-Internet estimates in order to determine if the percentage of youth who visited the public library in 2003 has decreased from the pre-Internet era. Consequently, it cannot be determined with confidence if the availability of the Internet has had a negative impact on the percentage of the population of youth who visit the public library.
Among youth who had not used the public library, the reasons for nonuse were as follows: 66.0% reported that they preferred using the Internet combined with a dislike of having to return borrowed materials and a dislike of reading (books); 39.8% reported that they preferred using their school library media center; and 23.6% reported that they had negative opinions about the public library. (These reasons were not mutually exclusive.)
Our analyses of youth's reasons for not using the public library lead us to conclude that: 1) while a preference for using the Internet was selected by the greatest number of youth as the reason why they did not visit the public library, and while it would be imprudent to ignore the obvious, it appears that use of the Internet, as an alternative to use of the public library, was attractive primarily to those youth who did not like having to return borrowed materials and who did not like to read. We suspect, therefore, that these youth's professed dislikes were probably the prime motivating factors for not using the public library. We suspect that the youth's preference for the Internet might just be as a convenient alternative to the public library, an alternative which is also compatible with their dislikes of returning materials and reading. In effect, we think it likely that, in the absence of the Internet, these youth would probably still not want to use the public library; 2) for some youth, the convenient school library media center is a "friendly" competitor to the public library; and 3) some youth have negative opinions about the public library which apparently inhibit their use of the public library.
The results of this survey indicate that, among youth at this time, use of the Internet and use of the public library are complementary activities. Having Internet access at home has not affected whether or not youth visit the library; however, Internet access at home appears to have affected the frequency with which youth visit the library. Either youth without Internet access at home are using the library more frequently, or youth with Internet access.
Use of the Internet appears to have diminished youth's need to use the public library as a source of personal information; however, use of the Internet appears not to have affected youth's use of the public library for school work or for recreation.
Given, for youth, the near universal availability of access to the Internet from a variety of sources, the public library is now one of many sources of Internet access and it is the least frequently used source of access by youth. Access to the Internet at the public library, when used by youth, appears now to be just another one of the regular services available at the library.
While the role of the public library in serving the needs of the "have nots" among youth across the digital divide continues, the public library is not the primary source of Internet access for these youth. The public library is now just one of many sources of Internet access for these youth. The reader is cautioned, however, that this generalization does not hold for all communities - especially those communities and their public libraries where access to the Internet is still very limited. There are differences among communities and, consequently, differences among the libraries which serve those communities. Note that this generalization applies only to youth; it does not apply to adults who are among the "have-nots" across the digital divide.
This research project was supported by a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the National Leadership Grants for Library Programs, Research and Demonstration. These results and conclusions do not carry the endorsement of the Institute of Museum and Library Services. |
