"By and large, the older the people, the less they use the public library." (p. 23)
Berelson uses a good deal of his article to discuss age as a determinative factor of who uses the public library. Through several figures, he rigorously illustrates that in 1949, a large proportion of library users were school-age youths, between the ages of 5 and 15. He states one possible reason for this could be the physical ailments associated with age, i.e., lessened energy or "eyestrain." I wasn't really buying that reasoning.
Yet, he makes a much more compelling argument when he links age and education. He states that increasingly, younger adults have had more formal education than their elders and therefore more experience with written material in general, and the public library specifically. He even speculated that as the number of people exposed to formal education increased, the age of patrons would correspondingly rise. I am curious about the progression from Berelson's observations in 1949 on age, education level, and the public library to age and education level in the public library today. Do school-aged youths still make up a higher proportion of public library patronage today? If Berelson's predictions have turned out correct (and I think it seems that they have at least in part) is it solely due to the proliferation of formal education in our society? Is this a strictly linear progression or have other factors played a role in raising the age of patrons?
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I feel like I've read some book or article before with modern library use statistics broken down by age, but can't remember what it was. A quick Google turned up plenty of stats on library INTERNET use by age, but I haven't found anything on regular library use.
The closest I found was Wisconsin Public Library Statistics, which has a collection of spreadheets covering the past several years.
There weren't any figures for the ages of library card holders, but in Madison in 2004 (most recent year covered) 1,263,684 children's items circulated compared to 3,061,621 adult items. So adults were borrowing considerably more materials.
However, when it came to library programs there were 1,641 children's programs with 56,720 attendees but only 532 adult programs with 8,016 attendees. So the children's programs were averaging about 34 attendees each, while adult programs averaged 15. I don't know if they counted parents or other adults in attendance at children's programs, though.
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