The Information Needs in Your Community

The citizens in your community--that is, the people your library serves--have an enormous variety of information needs. Depending on the kind of library you work in, these needs may include:

• Product evaluations.
  Before making a major purchase, it helps to know the quality and features of products.
   
• Health.
  People need information on how to stay healthy and how to understand their or their families' medical conditions.
   
• Government.
  So people can participate fully in making decisions, they need to understand their own communities and the country they live in. They also need to know who their elected and appointed government officials are and how to contact them.
   
• How-to-do-it.
  It takes knowledge to repair cars, build swing sets, and bake cakes.
   
• Personal enrichment.
  People want to know words to poems or songs, read a good book, enjoy the works of a favorite artist.
   
• Work.
  Business people need statistics, addresses, legal information. Individuals need advice on changing careers and obtaining better jobs.
   
• School.
  To complete assignments and lesson preparations, both students and teachers require information resources available in the library.
   
• Research.
  More advanced students will want to read scholars' interpretations of historical events and literary works, and researchers will need to examine reports of scientific studies and experiments.

These are just a few of the areas where people need information. In some cases they can find the information they need from friends, other schools, or organizations. However, the one place in the community that can provide various types of information to everyone is the library. The library is the information center for your school or community. Providing information to everyone who lives, works or studies there is the library's mission.

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