Abstract
Spatial accessibility of libraries affects their usage. It is, therefore, crucial to consider spatial accessibility’s impacts on equity and inclusiveness of public libraries, which are part of public spheres for information services and community activities. We proposed a method to evaluate spatial accessibility and equity of public libraries in urban settings and conducted a preliminary study for public libraries in Washington D.C. Spatial accessibility is evaluated from two perspectives: the minimum distance to the nearest library of a community and the total number of libraries within certain distances. Spatial equity is evaluated as the correlation between the spatial distribution of libraries and community characteristics, which indicate the priority in need for library resources. We find that the spatial distribution of public libraries in D.C. can satisfy residents’ basic need for library resources, as most communities can access at least one public library within an average distance of 2,500 m. However, the minority population, children and youth have inequitably less diverse library resources on average than the other subpopulations.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
American Library Association: Interpretations of the library bill of rights. http://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/librarybill/interpretations. Accessed 22 Aug 2019
Audunson, R., et al.: Public libraries as an infrastructure for a sustainable public sphere: a comprehensive review of research. J. Doc. 75, 773–790 (2019)
Carlo Bertot, J., Snead, J.T., Jaeger, P.T., McClure, C.R.: Functionality, usability, and accessibility: iterative user-centered evaluation strategies for digital libraries. Perform. Meas. Metrics 7(1), 17–28 (2006)
Celano, D., Neuman, S.B.: The role of public libraries in children’s literacy development an evaluation report. Pennsylvania Library Association (2001)
District of Columbia Government: Census tracts in 2010. 30 November 2017. https://opendata.dc.gov/datasets/6969dd63c5cb4d6aa32f15effb8311f3_8. Accessed 02 July 2019
Donnelly, F.P.: Regional variations in average distance to public libraries in the United States. Libr. Inf. Sci. Res. 37(4), 280–289 (2015)
Glander, M., Dam, T., Chute, A.: Households’ use of public and other types of libraries. https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2007/2007327.pdf. Accessed 27 Aug 2019
Hamre, A., Buehler, R.: Commuter mode choice and free car parking, public transportation benefits, showers/lockers, and bike parking at work: evidence from the Washington, DC region. J. Public Transp. 17(2), 4 (2014)
Hill, H.: Disability and accessibility in the library and information science literature: a content analysis. Libr. Inf. Sci. Res. 35(2), 137–142 (2013)
Janelle, D.G.: Spatial reorganization: a model and concept. Ann. Assoc. Am. Geogr. 59(2), 348–364 (1969)
Jesuit, D., Smeeding, T.: Poverty and income distribution. Technical report, LIS Working Paper Series (2002)
Johnson, C.A.: Do public libraries contribute to social capital? A preliminary investigation into the relationship. Libr. Inf. Sci. Res. 32(2), 147–155 (2010)
Knox, P.L.: The intraurban ecology of primary medical care: patterns of accessibility and their policy implications. Environ. Plan. A 10(4), 415–435 (1978)
Lloyd, J.M.: Fighting redlining and gentrification in Washington, D.C.: the Adams-Morgan organization and tenant right to purchase. J. Urban Hist. 42(6), 1091–1109 (2016)
Lynch, J.W., et al.: Income inequality and mortality in metropolitan areas of the United States. Am. J. Public Health 88(7), 1074–1080 (1998)
Miller, H.J.: A measurement theory for time geography. Geogr. Anal. 37(1), 17–45 (2005)
Institute of Museum and Library Services: Library search & compare. https://www.imls.gov/labs/search-compare/details?fscs_id=DC0001. Accessed 18 June 2019
Pacione, M.: Access to urban services the case of secondary schools in Glasgow. Scott. Geogr. Mag. 105(1), 12–18 (1989)
Park, S.J.: Measuring public library accessibility: a case study using GIS. Libr. Inf. Sci. Res. 34(1), 13–21 (2012)
Sin, S.C.J.: Neighborhood disparities in access to information resources: measuring and mapping U.S. public libraries funding and service landscapes. Libr. Inf. Sci. Res. 33(1), 41–53 (2011)
Smoyer-Tomic, K.E., Hewko, J.N., Hodgson, M.J.: Spatial accessibility and equity of playgrounds in Edmonton, Canada. Can. Geogr./Le Géographe canadien 48(3), 287–302 (2004)
Talen, E., Anselin, L.: Assessing spatial equity: an evaluation of measures of accessibility to public playgrounds. Environ. Plan. A 30(4), 595–613 (1998)
Tsou, K.W., Hung, Y.T., Chang, Y.L.: An accessibility-based integrated measure of relative spatial equity in urban public facilities. Cities 22(6), 424–435 (2005)
Vårheim, A.: Gracious space: library programming strategies towards immigrants as tools in the creation of social capital. Libr. Inf. Sci. Res. 33(1), 12–18 (2011)
Vårheim, A.: Public libraries, community resilience, and social capital. Inf. Res. 22(1) (2017)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Hong, L., Wu, J., Zou, Z. (2020). Spatial Accessibility and Equity of Public Libraries in Urban Settings. In: Sundqvist, A., Berget, G., Nolin, J., Skjerdingstad, K. (eds) Sustainable Digital Communities. iConference 2020. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12051. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43687-2_45
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43687-2_45
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-43686-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-43687-2
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)