Tag Archives: Literacy

The 10-Minute International Librarian #90: Explain how educators benefit from libraries

Yesterday was World Education Support Personnel Day, organised by Education International.

This makes the key point that effective schools and learning are about the whole range of people involved in education – teachers, nurses, support staff, and of course, librarians! See our blog on this for more.

Of course, libraries are already strongly focused on education – a large share of the stories on our Library Map of the World are indeed about SDG4 – Quality Education.

Through literacy, providing opportunities for informal and non-formal learning, and putting people in touch with learning opportunities, libraries are a key part of the wider education infrastructure.

And of course, many librarians are formally recognised as educators too!

However, there is maximum impact – both in delivery and in advocacy, when there is partnership with teachers and other educators.

So for our 90th 10-Minute International Librarian, explain how educators benefit from libraries.

Think about what you do that makes teachers’ lives easier, or helps them to achieve their goals more effectively?

Is it through providing materials or skills, offering insights and advice, or simply complementing classrooms with a quiet space for study?

These arguments can be powerful when looking to convince decision-makers that schools and universities cannot do without libraries (within their walls or beyond!), and in winning the support of teaching staff.

Let us know which arguments you think are strongest in the comments below.

Good luck!

 

This idea relates to the IFLA Strategy! Key Initiative 1.1: Show the power of libraries in delivering the Sustainable Development Goals 

As we publish more ideas, you will be able to view these using the #10MinuteInternationalLibrarian tag on this blog, and of course on IFLA’s Ideas Store! Do also share your ideas in the comments box below!

The 10-Minute International Librarian #87: Explain why books matter

This Saturday will be World Book and Copyright Day, launched by UNESCO in 1995 on 23 April – the day on which both Cervantes and Shakespeare died. It is also the day, in Catalonia, where it is traditional to offer books and roses as gifts.

Of course there are many international days, but this is a particularly important one for libraries, and is strongly celebrated by our field around the world.

Yet books are often taken for granted.

They have arguably faced tough competition in the attention economy, with streaming platforms and others looking to occupy time that previously would have been spent reading.

They are also, sadly, sometimes forgotten in cultural policies which focus more on ‘live’ arts than on giving a central role of literature, despite the deep reach that this has, not least through libraries.

Meanwhile, despite the importance of combatting illiteracy being clear, there can be a focus on shiny technological solutions, rather than promoting the wider reading of books that develops deeper skills.

So for our 87th 10-Minute International Librarian exercise, explain why books matter.

How can you, in a sentence or two, set out why it is important to invest in books, and in their promotion to communities?

How is it possible to do this in a way that appeals to all, rather than just to existing book-buying and book-reading populations?

What story can you tell of how books – and access to them – have changed people’s lives.

Share your ideas in the comments box below.

Good luck, and happy World Book Day!

 

This idea relates to the IFLA Strategy! Key Initiative 2.1 Produce, communicate and distribute key resources and materials that inspire the profession. 

As we publish more ideas, you will be able to view these using the #10MinuteInternationalLibrarian tag on this blog, and of course on IFLA’s Ideas Store! Do also share your ideas in the comments box below!

 

Leaving No Child Behind: The Importance of Investing in Library Services

World Children’s Day is the anniversary of signing both the Declaration of the Rights of the Child in 1959, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989.

It is an opportunity to focus on ensuring that the rights and interests of children are understood, and incorporated into decision-making at all levels.

This year’s theme is a Better Future for Every Child, concentrating on the impacts of inequalities on children, and the need to combat child poverty. It draws, in particular, from the economic and social divides exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, which demonstrated how different factors can interplay to lead to worse outcomes.

This focus also recalls the fact that the experience of poverty in childhood is too often associated with negative outcomes later in life, such as higher unemployment or lower incomes, poorer health, and beyond.

This link begins early, with poverty all too often correlating with lower literacy and other skills leading to less good education performance. This can risk reinforcing poverty over time, with poor children turning into low-income parents, whose own children then face the same challenges.

In the long run, putting an end to child poverty means increasing income levels. A key way of achieving this is by breaking the link between economic poverty and other negatives, such as low literacy and wider educational outcomes.

The strength of this link can come from a variety of factors: there may be fewer resources available at home, parents may be less able to help with homework and language development, families may participate less frequently in cultural events that can develop a taste for reading, and children may not have a space or quiet for learning.

 

Library interventions combatting educational inequality

Clearly, schools have a key role to play in tackling this situation, with skilled teachers with adequate resources helping ensure that children from poorer backgrounds genuinely do have the same chances as their better-off peers.

Complementing these, however, are great library services for children, through both school and public or community libraries, drawing on their unique potential to support learner success.  This role that libraries play is well documented (here and here, to give just two examples).

A first contribution comes through the wider work of libraries in giving access to materials that help develop ideas and expand horizons, something that may be particularly important for young people growing up without access to a wider range of experience.

They can run programmes focused on poorer communities, such as KidsREAD in Singapore, targeted at improving the English language skills of young people who risked falling behind otherwise, and run by the National Library Board. Similarly, Kids on the Tab in Kibera, Kenya, worked through libraries to complement the schooling of children from poor areas, contributing to much improved exam results, which in turn open up new possibilities. Libraries can also be useful venues for promoting programmes aimed at encouraging better educational outcomes, such as the MathsWhizz programme in Kenya.

A particularly important activity can be summer reading clubs, addressing the fact that over the long break, children without opportunities to learn and develop literacy skills at home risk falling behind their peers, leading to lower performance and frustration when they return. Holiday breakfast clubs can serve a similar purpose, while also tackling food insecurity. Homework clubs also help children who may lack a quiet space at home to work.

Libraries also play an important role in supporting school-readiness, ensuring that children are able to engage properly when they start formal education. A number of countries have adopted initiatives based on or similar to Bookstart, for example Boekstart in the Netherlands, Kindertreff in Switzerland, Start Life with a Book in Czechia, and Better Beginnings in Australia. They typically involve the provision of age-appropriate materials from a young age, and then ongoing support, including in cooperation with doctors, in order to keep an eye on language development.

While these are often universal programmes, a key goal is to support those families which may not have other opportunities, or children with difficulties that may hold them back at school (such as disability, anxiety, or attention deficit).

Connected to this, libraries (both school and public) can support family learning, helping to engage parents in the effort to develop children’s literacy skills, and potentially brining direct benefits to them as well. Furthermore, they serve as community convening spaces, and bring in an important experience of supporting personalised learning, as underlined by the Urban Libraries Council.

Even outside of specific service offers, research demonstrates that children from poorer background report relying far more on libraries than their richer peers.

IFLA’s Library Stat of the Week series drew on data from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) to show how children who don’t have a room of their own, have parents with lower qualifications, or who come from foreign language or immigrant backgrounds tended to have greater levels of dependence.

Further research using the same data just for the US has echoed this point, noting that even if levels of usage are the same, this usage will be more important for children who don’t enjoy access to space, resources and connectivity at home. Work in the UK underlines the same, focusing on the reliance of poorer children on public libraries.

They also help by providing internet access and equipment that families may not be able to afford, or simply extending opening hours (both providing a space for young people, and allowing parents to take on full-time work).

Indeed, in situations where children face insecurity and deprivation at home and outside, libraries can act as places of retreat and safety, both in richer countries, and in others facing serious endemic violence problems, such as Brazil and Colombia. Village and mobile libraries can extend possibilities to access information and technology to rural areas, which often also face higher levels of child poverty, as in India and Burkina Faso, or those which are remote, such as the Galapagos.

 

From potential to practice

However, the continued existence of education inequality, to the detriment of young people from poorer backgrounds, makes it clear that there is a lot still to do.

To some extent, there is work to do within our field, drawing on existing good practices. For example, as the Literacy Trust in the UK notes, it is important to reach out, given that there may be a reluctance to use libraries in some circumstances. Libraries’ reputation as a quiet place, only for the more highly educated, can represent a barrier to overcome. There is a risk that the people who need library services most simply don’t take the opportunity.

Libraries need to be able to reach out to poorer children where they are, rather than relying on traditional tools such as brochures, with cooperation with schools offering a powerful possibility in the case of public libraries at least, as underlined by the Urban Libraries Council.

There may even be an opportunity, as libraries open up following the pandemic, to do things differently and to engage people who previously never participated in library activities. For example, creating small public libraries in people’s homes in Foshan, China, helped increase outreach to families in deprived areas who would not otherwise come to existing institutions.

The way in which services are provided also matters. It is important not to create stigma around using services targeted towards children on low incomes, as underlined by the Child Poverty Action Group.

Skills also matter, a point also underlined by the Urban Libraries Council, and which lies at the heart of the Library at School programme in the Netherlands. So too does the ability to evaluate the impact of the work of libraries on educational outcomes among children facing poverty.

However, for our institutions to be able to fulfil their potential, they also depend on adequate resourcing and support. Yet all too often, it is poorer schools that aren’t offering school library services, a point made by the UK Children’s Laureate recently, but which has been known for over a decade.

As she set out: Millions of children, particularly those from the poorest communities worst hit by the pandemic, are missing out on opportunities to discover the life-changing magic of reading – one that OECD research suggests is a key indicator in a child’s future success. How can a child become a reader for pleasure if their parents or carers cannot afford books, and their primary school has no library, or that library is woefully insufficient?

Some have worried that cuts to library services happen quicker in less well-off areas, with impacts both on collections, and on spaces and staffing. In both cases, under-investment risks leading to unrealised potential to support investment in combatting inequality in education and literacy.

 

In conclusion, this year’s World Children’s Day provides an important reminder of the need to act on education and literacy as part of wider efforts to combat inequality and poverty among children. Libraries – both school and public – have a strong and proven role in doing this, drawing on their unique strengths.

 

Yet with significant challenges remaining, often exacerbated by the pandemic, these good practices need to be taken as a call to action, both within our field, but also – and perhaps more importantly – to the governments and others that determine what resources libraries have, and how they can work.

Library Stat of the Week #50 (Part 2): Where there are stronger and better used public and community libraries, more people read, more often

In the final post both of this mini-series on libraries and cultural data, and of our regular Library Stat of the Week posts, we return to a core function of libraries – to promote reading and access to books.

In the past three weeks, we have looked at data around how much households spend on books, as well as on wider data around participation in artistic and cultural activities. In each case, it appears that having more libraries, and using them better, is linked to greater spending and engagement.

This week, we look at data on how people spend their time, and in particular on how many people read regularly, and then how long they spend doing it.

For many, simply encouraging more reading is an end in itself, although of course this can also have positive impacts on issues such as wellbeing (a key issue during the pandemic!), literacy (skills can deteriorate if not used) and of course on the health of the wider cultural sector.

Once again, we are drawing on data from Eurostat, and in particular the Time Spent on Cultural Activities dataset (gathered between 2008 and 2015). Given its focus, it only covers countries in Europe, but offers insights that can apply elsewhere. As ever, data on libraries comes from the IFLA Library Map of the World, crossed with World Bank population data.

To set the scene, we can look already at what we know about people’s habits around reading, in particular throughout their lives.

Graph 7a: Average Time Spent Reading per Day Over Life

Graph 7a does this by looking at the average time spent reading per day per person, broken down by different age groups. It shows that, in general, there is a U-shaped curve, with people reading more when they are younger and when they are older, with 25-44 year olds reading least on average.

There are exceptions within this. For example, Romanian 15-20 year olds on average read more than any others in Europe. However, older Romanians (aged 65+) are the second least regular readers. Meanwhile, young Austrians and Dutch are low readers, but their parents and grandparents on average spend a much more average amount of time reading.

Graph 7b: Average Time Spent Reading by Readers Per Day

Graph 7b looks only at those people declaring that they do read regularly, and explores how long they spend doing this. While there is, again, a dip in average time spent reading among the 25-44 age group, this is less dramatic. Hungarian readers show up across all age groups as one of the nationalities that reads most when they do.

Graph 7c: Share of the Population Reading Books

The other driver of overall figures on how much people read on average is data about the share of the population reading at all. Graph 7c explores this, noting that the share of the population reading in general tends to be relatively stable, or drop between 15-20 and 25-44 year olds, and then rise relatively sharply among older groups. For example, while only an average share of younger Norwegians read, a larger share of older Norwegians than in any other country covered read. Similarly, from coming almost bottom of the class among younger groups, the older Dutch and Austrians come around average when it comes to the share of older people reading.

Graph 7d: Reading Intensity and Extensiveness

We can get an overview of the extensiveness (i.e. share of the overall population reading) and intensity (time spend reading by those who do) in Graph 7d, which looks at populations as a whole.

This shows us that Finland, Poland and Estonia do not just have an above average share of readers in the population, but those who do read tend to do so for longer. In contrast, Italy, France, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium and the United Kingdom have both a below-average share of readers in the population, and those who do read do so for shorter times than average.

Finally, there is a contrast between Norway, Luxembourg and Germany (more readers, but reading for shorter times), and Spain, Serbia and Romania (fewer readers, but those who do read for longer). A separate analysis of the situation for different age groups could also be interesting here, in order to understand whether the main challenge in increasing reading is to allow more time for this, or to get more people reading in the first place.

 

Having looked at reading habits, it is now time to look at the relationship between libraries and reading.

Graph 8a: Public/Community Libraries per 100 000 People and Average Time Spent Reading

Graph 8a looks at the availability of public and community libraries, as measured by the number of libraries per 100 000 people, compared to the average time spent reading by different age groups. It finds that there is a positive correlation for the population as a whole, mainly driven by older readers (those aged 45-64 and 65+). The link is less obvious for younger readers (aged 20-24 and 25-44).

Graph 8b: Public/Community Libraries per 100 000 People and Time Spent Reading by Readers

Graph 8b looks at the amount of time spent reading by those who do read. This again shows a gentle, but positive correlation – in other words, in countries with more public and community libraries, those people who do read tend to spend more time doing so. Looking across age groups, the correlation is positive for all, although only slightly in the case of 20-24 year olds.

Graph 8c: Public/Community Libraries per 100 000 People and Share of Population Reading

Graph 8c looks at numbers of public and community libraries, and the share of the population in different age groups reading. Again, it finds weak but positive correlation between numbers of libraries and tendency to read, with stronger links for older groups. The picture is similar if we look only at countries with up to 20 public or community libraries per 100 000 people.

Overall, the story from this is that pure numbers of libraries are positively linked with how many people read, and how much they do, but not particularly strongly.

Graph 9: Public/Community Library Workers per 100 000 People and Share of Population Reading

Graph 9 goes a little further, looking rather at numbers of public and community library workers. This is, arguably, a stronger indicator of how much is being invested in the library field, as well as its ability to reach out to readers, welcome them, and support literacy.

This shows a more positive link between the strength of the library field and share of adults reading, with an increase of 10 library workers per 100 000 people tending to be linked to a rise of 1% in the share of the population reading (or 1000 people). This arguably makes sense – library staff have a key role in helping readers find books that interest them, and simply in making libraries into welcoming places.

Once again, the connection is stronger in older groups. Interestingly, it does not appear that those who do read spend more time doing so in countries with more public and community library workers.

Graph 10a: Library Visits per Person and Average Time Spent Reading

Yet as in previous posts, the strength of the library field is only part of the picture – so too is how well it is used. Graph 10a does this, using data on average library visits per person per year. It shows a positive correlation between library visits and the length of time adults in general spend on reading per year, again with more positive links among older groups.

Graph 10b: Library Visits per Person and Time Spent Reading by Readers

Graph 10b looks at how long those adults who read do so on average. Here, the picture is similar to that in Graph 8b, with a weakly positive correlation. Again, it appears that there is little link between libraries and how long people spend reading.

Graph 10c: Library Visits per Person and Share of Population Reading

Graph 10c however looks at the share of the adult population that reads, and once again displays a strong and positive correlation. Across the population as a whole, an increase of one library visit per person per year tends to be associated with a 1.28 percentage point rise in the share of the population reading.

Graph 11: Library Loans per Person and Share of the Population Reading

Graph 11 repeats this last analysis, but with the average number of loans from public and community libraries per person per year. Again, there is a relatively strong positive correlation, with an extra library loan per person per year associated with a 0.6 point rise in the share of adults reading. As in Graph 10c, the connection holds for all age groups, although is stronger for older ones.

 

What can we conclude from this? First of all, that there are significant differences in reading habits across the European countries surveyed by Eurostat. High performance – as measured by a high average length of time spent reading per person – can be influenced by the number of people reading, and how long they read for. This performance matters, given the role of reading in maintaining and strengthening skills, in promoting wellbeing, and in providing demand for writing.

Looking at the connections with libraries, it seems that there are much stronger links between libraries and the share of the population reading than between libraries and how long people spend reading.

While correlation is not causality, the data shared here would support the argument that libraries can play a role in getting more people reading, and so in helping more people benefit in terms of skills and wellbeing. In particular, numbers of library staff appear to matter more than numbers of libraries, and levels of use of libraries have a stronger link still.

This would imply that a key focus of governments looking to boost reading will likely be to ensure that libraries are well-staffed and welcoming for all.

Throughout, the relationship between public and community libraries and numbers of people reading seems weakest in general for younger groups. To some extent, this may be because many younger people have access to university libraries (in the case of 20-24 year olds in particular), or just because of less inclination to read in general among 25-44 year olds. It can also be underlined that the importance of reading for skills is more important among older groups in any case.

Nonetheless, this does raise interesting questions about whether more can be done to increase reading among 25-44 year olds, and whether libraries can strengthen their role in this.

 

Find out more on the Library Map of the World, where you can download key library data in order to carry out your own analysis! See our other Library Stats of the Week! We are happy to share the data that supported this analysis on request.

Library Stat of the Week #42: Students from foreign language backgrounds rely more on libraries than their native-language peers

Over the past few weeks, our Library Stat of the Week posts have been looking at the degree to which students from different groups rely more or less on libraries.

We can gain insights into this from the results of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s  (OECD) Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), which in 2009 included a strong focus on libraries.

Today’s post looks at a further variable – whether students mainly speak a foreign language or the national language at home. In practical terms, in a country like the United Kingdom, we are looking at the difference in library use between children in English-speaking households, and, for example, Polish-speaking households.

This can have an impact on scores in reading and literacy, with young people with less exposure to national languages potentially struggling. Added to this is the fact that children of parents who do not speak the national language fluently cannot necessarily call on them for help with homework.

Graphs 1a and 1b therefore look at the difference in levels of library usage between these groups, expressed as the average score for students who come from households which mainly use a foreign language minus the average scores for students from households using the national language.

Graph 1a: Difference in Reading Index Scores Between Students who Speak a Foreign vs the National Language at HomeGraph 1b: Difference in Reading Index Scores Between Students who Speak a Foreign vs the National Language at Home

These demonstrate that on average, there is a gap of 0.24 points within the OECD, and 0.19 globally in favour of students from households using a foreign language, on an average that runs from -1 (no library use) to +1 (very intense library use).

The biggest gaps are seen in Hungary and the United Kingdom, although in total, 44 of the 55 for which data is available see students from foreign-language-speaking households making more use of libraries than those from national-language-speaking households.

Meanwhile, in only 10 countries do children from national-language households use libraries more than those from foreign-language households.

 

The data here appears to make a similar point to that made in previous posts in this mini-series – that young people who have characteristics often associated with disadvantage tend to use libraries more intensively than their peers.

Again, as before, the implication is that any moves that make access to libraries more difficult are likely to have a disproportionate impact on those who are already more at risk.

 

Find out more on the Library Map of the World, where you can download key library data in order to carry out your own analysis! See our other Library Stats of the Week! We are happy to share the data that supported this analysis on request.

Library Stat of the Week #40: School children without a room of their own or an internet connection rely more on libraries than their peers

Last week’s Library Stat of the Week started to explore the data available from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Programme for International Student Assessment (OECD PISA) regarding libraries and inequalities.

Based on a series of questions about the type of use that students (15 year olds taking part in the test) make of libraries, and how often, the PISA 2009 database provides an index of use of libraries.

By looking how different groups, on average, score on this index (running from -1 (no use) to +1 (extreme use)), it is possible to get a sense of whether there is relatively more or less dependence on libraries, according to different characteristics. As such, this provides valuable insights into how the benefits (or pain) of investment in (or cuts to) libraries may fall.

Following on from looking at differences in library usage between 15-year olds who have a 1st or 2nd generation immigrant background, as opposed to ‘native’ students, this week looks at two indicators of disadvantage – whether children have a room of their own at home or not, and whether they have household internet access or not.

Both of these are not only signs that a student may come from a less well-off background, but can also have a direct effect on their ability to benefit from education. The possibility to read and study quietly, and to make use of all that is available on the internet, are powerful.

We start by looking at differences between students who do, and do not, have a room of their own.

Graph 1a: Difference in Library Use between Students Without, and With a Room of their Own

Graph 1b: Difference in Library Use between Students Without, and With a Room of their Own

Graphs 1a and 1b do this for each country for which data is available, giving a figure for the difference in the index of library use between students who do not, and do, have a room to themselves. A bar to the right shows that students who do not have such a private space make more use of libraries than students who do, while a bar to the left shows the contrary. The longer the bar, the bigger the difference.

Overall, it shows that in OECD countries, students who do not have a room for themselves score 0.15 points higher on average on the library usage index, while globally, the figure is 0.07. The biggest differences are to be seen in Scandinavian countries, as well as the Netherlands and Germany.

In 38 countries, students without a room of their own make more use of libraries than those who don’t. In 19 countries, it is the other way around, while in 3, there is no difference.

Graph 1c: Difference in Library Use and Average PISA Reading Scores

Graph 1c looks at whether there is much difference in this level of reliance on libraries depending on overall average reading scores. As in last week’s post, there appear to be two groups of countries – with richer countries which tend to score higher in blue, and developing countries tending to score lower in green.

Within each group, however, there is little correlation between the level of reliance on libraries by students without rooms of their own, and overall reading scores. In other words, it seems not to matter much whether a country is a high or low performer overall – those who are disadvantaged continue to make strong use of libraries.

Graphs 2a and 2b replicate the analysis in Graphs 1a and 1b, but rather comparing scores for library use between students who do not, and who do, have internet access at home.

 

Graph 2a: Difference in Library Use Scores between Students Without and With Home Internet Access

Graph 2b: Difference in Library Use Scores between Students Without and With Home Internet Access

The differences here are even stronger, with an OECD average difference of 0.23 and a global average of 0.17, illustrating that globally children without home internet access rely more heavily on libraries than those who don’t.

In 48 countries out of 59, libraries appear to be more important for children without home internet access than for those with it, while only in 11 do children with internet access at home make more use of libraries than those who don’t. Interestingly, the countries with the highest differences in usage are different to the ones which come top when looking at students with rooms of their own.

Graph cc: Difference in Library Use and Average PISA Reading Scores

Graph 2c then repeats the same logic as Graph 1c, looking at whether there is any reason to believe that the connection between lack of a home internet connection and library use is stronger or weaker depending on overall literacy scores.

The result – as in the case of Graph 1c – is that there is no clear connection, either in the group of lower performers or the group of higher performers. In other words, it does not matter much how well a country performs overall on literacy, library use tends to be higher among students without an internet connection at home.

 

The overall conclusion of this blog is that the evidence indicates that, in general, students who face barriers to benefitting from education due to their home environment tend to rely more on libraires. The corresponding argument is then that when library services are cut back, the pain will be higher for those who already have fewer resources or options.

Next week’s post will look at another dimension of inequality – the highest level of education achieved by parents.

 

Find out more on the Library Map of the World, where you can download key library data in order to carry out your own analysis! See our other Library Stats of the Week! We are happy to share the data that supported this analysis on request.

Library Stat of the Week #39: Globally, 1st and 2nd generation immigrant students make more intensive use of libraries than their native peers

One of the most worrying aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic and its consequences has been the deepening of the educational divide.

As highlighted in the Gates Foundation’s Goalkeepers report, there is a significant risk that the closure of school buildings will increase inequalities. In effect, groups that previously faced risks of worse educational outcomes face an even higher risk now.

While it is difficult to gather statistics on what is happening already, we can at least look back at available data to understand what factors might contribute to combatting this inequality. This can provide a basis for planning for the recovery afterwards.

Fortunately, the dataset from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Programme for International Student Assessment (OECD PISA) 2009 offers insights here.

We have already been able, in previous posts, to note the connection between access to a library and enjoyment of reading, and library availability and literacy skills.

This post looks to understand the connections between library use and just one potential vector of inequality – immigrant status.

As part of its data collection, as well as measuring levels of literacy and asking questions about library use, PISA 2009 also asked if the 15-year olds involved were first or second generation immigrants, or ‘native’ (i.e. all others). This allows us then to look at how far immigrant children, and the children of immigrants, depend on libraries.

Graph 1a: Difference in Library Usage (1st Generation Immigrants minus Native)

Graph 1a looks at the situation for 1st generation immigrants, providing for each country a figure for the difference between immigrant and ‘native’ 15 year olds in terms of scores on the index of library use compiled by the OECD. This index is made up of figures related to how often students borrow books – for work or pleasure – or use the library in other ways, and runs from -1 to 1.

In the graph, a longer bar to the right indicates that 1st generation immigrant students use the library more intensively than natives. A bar to the left indicates that they use it less.

Overall, the conclusion is clear – in all but two countries, 15-year olds with a 1st generation immigrant background make much stronger use of libraries than native peers.

Graph 1b: Difference in Library Usage (1st Generation Immigrants minus Native)

Graph 1b replicates this analysis, but comparing 2nd generation immigrant students to ‘native’ students. While the effect is less strong, only 9 of the 43 countries for which data is available see 2nd generation immigrant students use libraries less than native students.

In both graphs, the United Kingdom and Norway share the top spots in terms of how much more immigrant students use libraries than natives.

These graphs also send a clear signal – libraries tend to be better used by students who can risk otherwise being left behind. It follows that any reduction in the possibility to use libraries is more likely to hurt students from immigrant backgrounds.

 

Graphs 1a and 1b allow us to look at individual countries. What about overall trends, for example when we compare these figures with how students perform in general on literacy, or how much native students use libraries?

Graph 2: Difference in Levels of Library Use (1st/2nd Generation Immigrants vs Native) Compared with Overall Reading Scores

Graph 2 looks at the first of these questions, comparing the difference in library usage between 1st/2nd generation immigrant students and native peers (horizontal axis) and average scores for literacy for the whole population (vertical axis). Each dot represents a country.

Overall, there appears to be a positive correlation, with higher gaps in levels of library usage between immigrants and natives leading to higher overall reading scores.

In reality though, it perhaps makes more sense to see the countries presenting as falling into two groups – one of higher performers (usually richer countries) in the top right, and a group of less developed ones in the cluster in the middle-left.

In each of these groups, there is in fact little correlation between differences in library use and overall reading scores.

The lesson from this is then that the value of libraries to immigrant students does not depend on how well a country is performing in general – libraries seem to matter in both cases.

Graph 3: Difference in Levels of Library Use (1st/2nd Generation Immigrants vs Native) Compared with Native Library Use

Graph 3 repeats this, but this time, the vertical axis looks at levels of library use among native students. Here, there is a more obvious correlation, with differences in library usage higher in situations where native students are using them less.

To some extent, this is logical – if natives use libraries less, and immigrants use them to the same extent, of course the gap will be higher.

In policy terms, however, the implication is that even where there is less use of libraries by native students, they continue to be important to immigrant students.

 

As highlighted last week, there appears to be a strong link in almost all countries surveyed between library use and scores in the literacy component of PISA.

This week’s statistics indicate that, in turn, 1st and 2nd generation immigrant students tend to be more intensive library users than their native peers. This connection tends to hold, regardless of the overall level of literacy in the population, and even when native students use libraries less.

While of course correlation cannot be taken for causality, the data here supports the argument that ensuring access to libraries will be an important part of any effort to close the education divide.

 

Find out more on the Library Map of the World, where you can download key library data in order to carry out your own analysis! See our other Library Stats of the Week! We are happy to share the data that supported this analysis on request.