Community Profiling

1. Why profile?

- Increase specific knowledge of the community you serve

- Discover trends (political, economic, educational, demographic. etc.)

- Better your service to the community

2. Where do I get my information?

- Statistics:

- US. Census Bureau http://www.census.gov/index.html

- State Data Center http://sdc.state.nc.us/

- Action for Children http://www.ncchild.org

- State/Academic Library (archives of gov. docs.)

- Local government offices

- Your own library (Statistical Abstract of the United States, State and local statistics sources, U.S. statistical rankings, State and metropolitan area data book, County and city data book, Guide to statistical materials produced by governments and associations in the United States, etc.)

- Regional Profiles created by some state governments: http://www.mass.gov/hed/economic/profiles/

- Or create your own with a community survey

- Descriptive Data:

- Interviews with community members, politicians, school teachers, etc.

- Focus groups of children and Yas (for historical data, visit retirement homes, and maybe ask your Yas to get involved in this – get them working for you!)

- Working Group of colleagues to discuss the community and the developing profile

- Newspaper articles, books on the community, Chamber of Commerce

- Personal observation (condition of housing, services offered, employment opportunities, kinds of people on the street, etc.)

- Planning department reports, local maps, real estate agencies, etc.

- The telephone yellow pages

3. What other information should I gather?

- Collect library statistics (circ records, use studies, ref. questions asked/answered, etc.)

- Analyze library collections

- Document service levels and priorities

- Define service groups

4. Then what?

- You must relate the community data to your library services to evaluate what you are doing and what/whether you need to change.

5. Issues:

- You must define your “community” at the outset.

- You should determine what perspective will be most useful

- types of people in the community

- services offered to the community

- daily operation of the library

- You should realize that your community is always in flux. A profile is never complete!

6. Some good reading on the subject:

- Beal, Christina. Community Profiling for Librarians. British Library Board, 1985.

- Hawtin, Murray and Janie Percy-Smith. Community Profiling: a practical guide. 2^nd edition. Open University Press, 2007.