Background The concept for this project had its genesis at the Standing Committee’s second meeting at the 2012 IFLA Congress in Helsinki when we were discussing the papers that had been given over the course of the past week. It was noted that certain words had consistently  been used by presenters to describe public libraries and this led to a decision to ask the wider library and information community what words or concepts immediately come to mind when thinking  about a public library.

This was never meant to be an in-depth or scientifically accurate survey. Rather it was designed as a vox pop to give the Standing Committee some direction for its marketing and advocacy campaign. I created the survey using Survey Monkey and distributed the link via IFLA e-lists and through the networks of Standing Committee Members.

We had 1,234 replies from colleagues in 13 countries. Regardless of which country the respondent hails from the same words have prominence with books, community, access, knowledge, reading and space being firm favourites.  The survey closed on 8 February 2013.

These were the words used to describe the public library.

Findings

These were the words used to describe the public library.

Where in the World?

Responses were received from these countries;