Hennen’s American Public Library Ratings For 2004

By Thomas J. Hennen Jr.

Introduction

Has the economic downturn affected libraries?  Will the ratings finally include building size and electronic resources? Did many of the same libraries top the rating scales again?  In this, the sixth edition of the HAPLR ratings, I will try to address these and other issues.  Many librarians look forward to them; others dread or deride them.  The rating numbers are treated more fully on my web site.   

The economic downturn is mostly affecting the input side of the ledger for now, and that is to be expected.  There is a lag between budget cuts and the decline in library usage that we are just beginning to see.  Denver has been at the top of the list for several years running, but this year, partly due to budget cuts, it slipped to third place.  We can expect more of that if library revenues continue to decline.

I have still not incorporated the available electronic resources data into the ratings themselves, but I have indicated a separate ranking for the top 5 libraries in each population category in this article and will include more detail on my web site.  The data are still too skewed to incorporate into the HAPLR general ratings. 

Building statistics are finally available.  That will be great news for building planners.  I have not incorporated square feet numbers into the HAPLR ratings.  If I ever do, it will undoubtedly be in the form of a litmus test; a library either passes with a threshold square footage or it does not.  More likely, the building data will continue to be reported separately.  Much more detail on building data will be available on my web site.

State Comparisons

The table below indicates the relative 2003 and 2004 rankings of each state.  The scores weight the population of library communities so that a high score for a populous community in a state weighs more heavily than one for a less populous community. There is usually little movement from one rating year to the next, but a few states always move in the ratings.  Arkansas, Colorado, North Carolina, and South Carolina advanced by more than two positions.  Minnesota, Montana, and Oklahoma fell by more than three positions. 
 

Table 1.  State HAPLR Scores

 Building Size Comparisons

Building size is a key measure of public library service, but building the data directly into the HAPLR ratings may not be possible in the near term even though FSCS has finally started collecting the data.  Over one out of six of libraries still have not reported their building size for FSCS purposes.  Four states (Alabama, Idaho, Illinois, and Nevada) have not reported building size for any libraries.  Just 27 states reported building size data for 90% or more of their libraries. 

The data here can be refined more, of course, and this has been needed by building planners for a long time.  In my book, Hennen’s Public Library Planner, I had to use just comparisons for Wisconsin in the section on building planning because the federal data were not yet available.  Questions on comparative building size are asked again and again during any library building program. 

Still, the data that are available will prove extremely useful for building planners.  Consider the data in Table 2 below.  The table considers three measures: 1) square feet per capita, 2) books per square foot, and 3) square feet per Full Time Equivalent staff.  A library with a number lower than the one listed for the first quartile is in the bottom 25% while one above the number listed for the third quartile is in the top 25%.  As population size declines, all three measures increase; the trend is less marked for books per square foot.  The smaller the library, the higher the space provided.  There are economies of scale in larger operations, of course. 

Note that the libraries in Table 2 are divided into just three population categories rather than the usual 10 for purposes of building comparisons.  This is done for convenience in summarizing the data for publication here.  Further detail, including regional variations, will be presented on my web site. 

Table 2.  Building Size Comparison by Quartile.