Finding the Underserved

The heart of the public library mission is to provide service to the entire community and serve the underserved. But how do you identify the people you are not reaching, where they live, and what they need? And what does it mean for your services if in your community the underserved are not also underprivileged?

Contrary to popular belief, in a surprising number of communities the upwardly mobile middle and upper-middle classes are underserved. This creates a marginalized library with eroding support. It can threaten the library's ability to serve the underprivileged and may well isolate it from the majority of community residents. Although a recent OCLC report (tinyurl.com/oclcreport) found that library support isn't necessarily tied to library usage, in tough economic times libraries cannot count on well-meaning citizens who have sustained it in the past to pay for “the greater good.” In a climate of shrinking paychecks and rising prices, a tax increase for library services they don't use can be a nonstarter.

To compete in today's 24/7 information marketplace requires reaching all potential users. That means adopting service models that operate under a market or demand-based approach to needs assessment, services, and service delivery; adopting decision-making methods that are market-based and data-driven; and using tools that clearly demonstrate who is underserved, not just who is underprivileged. Few librarians today can imagine running a library without an OPAC. Just as inconceivable is the idea of not having “community information systems” for making informed decisions in which library use data is integrated with data about community needs, enabling administrators to test innovative and fitting solutions to local problems.

In 2001, CIVICTechnologies (see box, p. 45) began working with Southern California's County of Los Angeles Public Library, Smiley Library in the City of Redlands, and Glendale Public Library. These projects heightened CIVICTechnologies' interest in the challenges faced by libraries to be more relevant and to respond to a broad spectrum of community needs by becoming more market savvy. The libraries were receptive to using geographic information systems (GIS) technology to strengthen their strategic and service-area planning and outreach efforts.

Embracing market segmentation was the next step. Librarians may know about market segmentation, a tool for understanding their community, but few have taken to heart the need (and discipline) to apply segmentation principles to planning their services. According to www.bplans.com, a free resource to help entrepreneurs plan better businesses, market segmentation is “the categorization of potential buyers into groups based on common characteristics such as age, gender, income, and geography or other attributes relating to purchase or consumption behavior.”

Market segmentation combined with GIS technology reaches beyond census numbers, survey data, and subjective observations to help businesses and organizations visualize the psychodemographics of a community. Market segmentation accurately predicts consumer behavior. It is trusted by a large number of Fortune 5000 companies that use it to inform multimillion-dollar investments in marketing, sales, and customer service.

Understanding psychodemographic delineations in a local community will help library directors allocate scarce resources to the right projects, avoiding misperceptions and misconceptions. Because segments can be mapped down to a local neighborhood, market segmentation is a powerful analytical tool. Ultimately, it is a rich method for understanding demand for library services, matching collection development with community needs, and developing marketing and fundraising campaigns that resonate with the people the library is targeting.

The Henderson District PL (HDPL), NV, believed that its service area comprised mostly retired seniors and young families. But that was not completely true. Market analysis showed that there were more people in segments approaching retirement but still working at the top levels of the professional world, i.e., “young” seniors who have distinctly different needs from the retired. Even more surprising to the library management team were the many young professionals in its service area without children. In fact, only 35% of the households included children, as revealed through the creation of thematic maps that overlaid household size with branch locations. The high concentration of families with children in a few neighborhoods near certain branches had contributed to the misperception.

Now, the library is using innovative methods to deliver services to all segments of the community, including those underserved “young” professionals and “young” seniors, whose support is key to winning the next funding levy. The library has developed a three-pronged approach to revitalizing its community role: 1) the addition of on-demand database services, including those on business, consumer health, and school support; 2) a broad-based advertising and PR campaign to raise awareness; and 3) high-quality brochures and other printed materials that succinctly tell the library's story through benefit statements targeted to key segments. The library has seen increased usage across a range of measures such as number of patrons (cardholders), checkouts, and gate count. To keep pace with changes in its rapidly urbanizing community, HDPL is planning to undertake a second market segmentation report this year.

The Topeka & Shawnee County PL (TSCPL), KS, began a strategic planning process in late 2007. TSCPL serves approximately 175,000 people with one facility. TSCPL sought to identify underserved segments, assess their needs, develop appropriate resources to meet those needs and deliver those services, and implement a marketing campaign targeted at selected segments. TSCPL began the process by mapping the relationships between patrons and nonpatrons and among such elements as patrons, checkouts, material types, and market segments.

The library found that the top six market segments—Green Acres, Rustbelt Traditions, Home Town, Exurbanites, Midlife Junction, and Cozy and Comfortable (see “What's in a name?” for a description of selected segments)—account for 53% of the population, with the remaining 47% fragmented across some 24 other segments. Each segment was ranked for its potential to add patrons and increase checkouts. This gives TSCPL a tool for identifying needs and for developing and managing its service delivery and marketing.

In contrast to the top six segments, Inner City Tenants (a segment typically considered “underprivileged”) accounts for only 1.1% of the population, or 1,916 people. For TSCPL, this segment represents the highest patron penetration rate among all 30 segments—77% of Inner City Tenants are patrons—and the fifth highest average checkouts per patron (1.78 items). In this case, the library is providing exceptional service to a market that is often considered underserved.

Service to juveniles and young adults is important to the TSCPL program. We ranked the potential to increase youth patronage and checkouts in each of the 30 segments. The Home Town segment, for example, has a high potential for increasing youth patronage and checkouts, as evidenced by its dominant share of youth checkouts. The behavior of youth in census block groups with high checkouts can serve as a model for increasing checkouts in the census block groups with the lowest checkouts.

The analysis also indicated that the library has a problem: the top population segment, “Green Acres”—which is family-oriented, well educated, middle class, and not ethnically diverse—is one of the most underserved. While Green Acres makes up 13.7% of the population, or 23,999 people, it has one of the lowest patron penetration rates (only 39%) and one of the lowest average checkouts per person (1.32 items). Without improving services to Green Acres, the library will not meet the needs of its largest segment and will underperform in meeting the needs of the overall community.

One challenge in delivering services to this area is that Green Acres households are spread throughout the rural areas of Shawnee County. With low bandwidth in these locales, reaching them through the library's Digital Branch is not a reliable option. TSCPL is investigating other means, such as increased bookmobile or books-by-mail services, services through local schools, or opening local storefront facilities.

Another important result of the analysis came from comparing print and nonprint materials by segment. Nonprint materials were highly favored by segments whose characteristics include close proximity to the library, modest incomes, and a diverse range of household types, ages, and life stages. TSCPL is developing targeted marketing programs to increase use of both print and nonprint materials in these segments and to identify other segments with similar characteristics that are likely to use these resources.

Market segmentation allows us to move beyond definitions of the underprivileged in terms of simple racial, ethnic, or class distinctions. One California county library believed that its Hispanic community was both underprivileged and underserved. An analysis found that there was only a moderate Hispanic population and a low to moderate Spanish-speaking population compared with the state and the nation. In fact, in this county, there is a noticeable absence of any market segment usually associated with Spanish-language or Hispanic culture. Instead, there is a strong presence of two segments—“International Marketplace” and “Up and Coming Families”—that are composed of broad ethnic and racial populations.

The findings also indicate that the Hispanic population in this community is not underprivileged but well integrated into the culture at large. From a service point of view, this has two implications: 1) providing Spanish-language materials may (or may not) support the recreational needs of the Hispanic population but is not needed for English as a Second Language (ESL); and 2) providing Spanish-language or Hispanic cultural materials needs to be considered as a trade-off against materials in other languages that are in equal demand.

Studying how the market breaks down also reveals some clear patterns. For instance, in smaller library service areas with populations under 50,000 (either city or county libraries or outlet service areas in larger districts), one or two dominant segments often account for roughly half the population, with the remaining population split among eight to 12 segments. The Bossard Memorial Library in Gallipolis, OH, serves about 31,250 people throughout Gallia County. Bossard has two segments that account for almost half of its households—Rooted Rural (24.4%) and Southern Satellites (21.9%)—with the rest of the population divided into seven segments averaging 7.7% each. In this model, libraries cannot help but provide services to the dominant segments but must also search carefully to uncover both the underprivileged and underserved—and distinguish between the two—among the remaining smaller segments.

Libraries with populations around 150,000 usually have just a few dominant segments. In many cases, one-half to two-thirds of the population fall into the top five segments. The rest of the population is divided among a wide variety of segments, often 15 or more. The underprivileged—the segments we generally think of as underserved—usually reside in these smaller segments. Reaching them is an important part of the library's mission, but it can be difficult and consume significant resources. Librarians can pinpoint these segments without breaking the bank by using GIS tools. This cost-effective approach also means that libraries won't miss the opportunity to serve the majority of households in their dominant segments—thereby protecting them from creating an underserved majority.

To implement a demand-driven approach, librarians should begin by reassessing their knowledge of their community. Librarians become their own worst enemy by claiming to know their area, when in fact they know some regular patrons and miss thousands of other people who use the library infrequently or not at all. Furthermore, librarians should be wary of traditional methods of assessing local needs such as surveys and general workshops because while they reflect the needs of people who participate in the process, they don't identify the needs of those who don't. By connecting with only a handful of people, the library risks alienating constituents who may perceive it as tilted to one group or another.

Libraries are stuck in an outdated service model based largely on delivering services to the segments of their community that they know. They lack the tools to analyze the community effectively and instead rely on simplistic definitions based on racial, ethnic, and class distinctions. In a down economy with funding cutbacks and competitive pressures, librarians need to look beyond old models to visualize, analyze, relate, and act based upon market segmentation data and a demand or market-based approach. Making immediate and far-reaching changes to adjust to this new reality will enable libraries to deliver the right mix of services that help ensure their viability, relevance, and, ultimately, their competitive advantage. This is the future of the American public library.