What do children think about Tameside Libraries?

Headline Results from our Children's Public Library Users Survey carried out in November 2007

The Children’s Public Library Users Survey is a national model for surveying children and teenage visitors to public libraries. The questionnaire focuses on various aspects of the library service, for example book and computer usage and general attitudes to these resources and to the library overall. It is more than a satisfaction tool in that it allows us to understand what young people want from the library service and we can therefore use it as a service improvement tool.

• 1,390 children and young people completed the written questionnaire across all the libraries
• 86% thought their library was good overall
• 79.2% said the selection of books was good and 19.5% said OK
• 73.4% said the computers were good and of those using the computers on the day of the survey 78.5% thought the computers were good.
• 61.8% had come to the library to borrow, 47.2% had come to use a computer and 22% to do their homework.
• 58.5% thought the homework help in the library was good and 38.5% thought it was OK. However interestingly only 670 children answered this question which is less than half of those who completed the questionnaire.
• 98.9% thought the library was a friendly place.
• 97.5% thought the library was a safe place.
• 92.7% thought their library was bright and cheerful 
• 95.3% said the library was a place they wanted to come.

We were pleased with these results but unfortunately although we had improved our score for children who thought the library was good overall to 86%, from a score of 79.6% in 2004 we did not reach the new national target of 90%, up from 77% in 2004. Our actions to improve:

• Prioritising book borrowing and reading as part of our class visit programme. 
• Improving our class visit programme to include tailor made sessions in response to requests from teachers – including, using reference books on the Internet and using the library resources for a school topic.
• Working with secondary school librarians promoting reference books available through our website
• Encouraging staff to interact more with children and young people.
• Asking children and young people what books they want to see in the library.
• Involving children in any refurbishments of children’s areas in libraries.