For the Independent Study I again worked under the direction
of Dr. Yan Quan Liu including the third phase of a study conducted by Dr. Liu to gauge the impact of digital resources and
services in public libraries on patrons. This survey was done in the Primary Metropolitan New York area, specifially with
the Brooklyn Public, the New York Public and the Queensborough Public library systems. I met with Dr. Liu on a weekly basis
were we prepared a schedule of activities and timetables.
The work involved was varied and entailed
diverse small tasks that contributed to the whole project. This entailed the writing of letters of introduction and intent
of the project, the preparation of a comprehensive questionnaire, the writing of brochures and posters advertising the survey,
as well as, the reparation of packets to be sent to participating libraries. Once the questionnaires were filled out by patrons
and returned all of the information had to be tabulated, put into an excel document and preparedreport format..
The letters of intent described the earlier two studies of the impact of public library digital resources and objectives
of this study along examples of the publications and conferences that had been written for and attended where results of the
studies had been discussed. Included with the letter was a response sheet with information to be filled out by the recipient
librarian.
The questionnaire that had been used in the Connecticut and New England studies was updated slightly
and was translated into Chinese and into Spanish, to allow more patrons to take part in the survey. There were two sections
with twenty multiple choice and written response questions in total.
The first part contained demographic questions and the second part contained digital resource use questions.
Once positive responses were received, copies were made of the questionnaires and of the directions to each participating
library branch librarian. The packets of questionnaires and instructions sent to each participating branch included self-addressed
return envelopes. When the questionnaires were returned the contents of each one was recorded in an Excel sheet and then compiled
by branch and then by library system. A report was written for each branch.
