Extract from ABC News
Visitors to the more than 1700 library service points in Australia have risen to above pre-pandemic levels. (Getty Images: Oscar Wong)
At the beginning of 2023, the City of Marion Libraries had a problem.
As with many public institutions still recovering from COVID-19 restrictions, visitor numbers were down, and the library service, located in Adelaide's southern suburbs, was losing 100 members every month.
The traditional methods of attracting people to the library weren't working. It was time to try something new.
Fortunately, the library staff had an idea: a social media campaign to grab the attention of people who'd lost touch with the library.
Staff began producing videos aimed at an online audience that was TikTok-literate, such as a Keeping Up with the Librarians reality TV parody that soon went viral.
The quirky content hit the mark, making "a reluctant star" of librarian Denise.
"It's silly; it's kooky," City of Marion mayor Kris Hanna tells ABC Arts.
City of Marion Libraries soon amassed a large following on social media, with more than 110,000 across Facebook, Instagram and TikTok at last count.
It's no mean feat for a council area with a population of 100,000.
The new social media strategy had another, more tangible effect, attracting not only virtual followers but real-life library users.
Since the social media campaign launched in 2023, library visits have grown by 30,000 people a year, and 130 new members have signed up each month.
"It's a lot of extra people," says Hanna, who received a message from one council resident saying that seeing Denise's antics online inspired her to visit the library for the first time in years.
"Adding that element of fun — and maybe the ridiculous — is definitely bringing people into the library," he says.
A post-COVID boom
The City of Marion is not the only library service in Australia to welcome a growing number of visitors through its doors.
"Public libraries are having a resurgence," says Jane Cowell, president of the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA).
In-person library visits, which fell during the COVID years of 2020-22, have finally recovered to pre-pandemic levels.
According to the latest Australian Public Libraries Statistical Report, libraries recorded more than 88 million in-person visits in 2023-24, up 10 per cent on the previous year and 4 per cent on 2019-20.
Australians are borrowing more, too. In 2023-24, libraries loaned out 174 million items, up 23 per cent on 2019-20.
"Everyone thought the public library would die with the rise of the Internet," Cowell says. "We didn't — we increased our usage; we increased our relevance." (Supplied: ALIA)
One factor driving libraries' renewed popularity is the cost-of-living crisis.
"People are borrowing more, whether it's that they're not going out as much … [or] they're not buying as many of their own books," Cowell says.
Digital collections held by libraries, including e-books and audiobooks, have more than doubled in the last five years, and these formats have proved popular with borrowers, accounting for 32 per cent of loans.
Like many library services around the country, Newcastle Libraries is offering borrowers more than books and magazines.
Among its expanded offering is a "library of useful things", a special collection of hard-to-source devices including a high-resolution thermal camera, an indoor air quality monitor and a Braille A4 frame and stylus.
"We loan out electricity meters so you can check how your fridge is doing … We have sewing machines available so you can come in with your library card and use a sewing machine to hem your pants," says Julie Baird, director of Museums, Archives, Libraries and Learning at City of Newcastle.
"The library is the last place you can go where they don't ask you to spend money," Baird says. (Supplied: Newcastle Libraries)
But Baird says materials are only part of the story.
"Really it's about community-building on a local level."
Programs and events run by libraries for the community, such as story time, LEGO club and author talks, are increasingly popular.
Across Australia, the number of library-run programs has almost doubled in the last five years, and participation is rising too, with more than 7 million people attending 409,000 sessions in 2023-24.
Many of these programs are aimed at young people. Baird says that while families with small children and older adults are frequent library users, the ages in between represent a "dead zone" in library visitation.
"People care deeply about libraries and they're very engaged," says Baird (pictured). (Supplied: Newcastle Libraries)
In response, Newcastle Libraries has added youth-targeted author talks, book clubs and hands-on sessions during school holidays to its schedule.
The service also provides support and snacks to students who are studying for exams and has started a zine (small self-published booklets, often with a specialised or niche focus) collection to support local creators.
"We're trying really hard to look at youth as more than visitors; we're trying to give them agency and voice in a way that sometimes leads us down different paths," she says.
Fulfilling a social need
Many visitors to the library come looking for social connection.
"People trust libraries, and they trust them as safe spaces," Baird says.
"The thing I find post-COVID is that people desperately want to engage with real human beings. It's one thing to look at a picture of an apple on the screen and it's another thing to hold an apple in your hand and smell it, taste it and engage with it in all different ways.
"Libraries are real apples. As much as we increase online streaming and e-collections and digital information, people still want to come in and see Fred at the front counter and have a chat about how the day is going."
In 2023-34, Newcastle Libraries loaned out more than 1.7 million items, the most of any NSW council library service. (Supplied: Newcastle Libraries)
Libraries with Wi-Fi and public access PCs are a vital point of digital access in a world where digital exclusion is closely tied to social disadvantage.
"We still have people in our communities who have very limited Internet at home," Cowell says.
Libraries provide vital services like digital literacy and scam awareness training, and they're often where people go when they need help navigating online government services.
"You go to Centrelink, and they expect you to have your own computer … If you don't, they send you to the library. If you're applying for a passport and you don't have a computer, they send you to the library," Baird says.
"We're doing an awful lot of almost quasi-social work by providing tech for lower-income households."
The library has emerged as a sought-after third space due to the rise in remote and hybrid work in the post-pandemic period.
"We've seen a huge increase in people working from the library and wanting to use meeting rooms for online interviews and meetings away from the distractions of home," Cowell says.
The library is also a refuge for vulnerable people, including the unhoused.
"Our libraries give out free sanitary products … because people really need libraries in that way," Baird says.
A funding shortfall
Both Baird and Cowell say public libraries do not have the resources to fulfill its many roles.
"The hard thing about libraries is we try to be all things for all people. We're legislated; you must have a library service if you're a local government," Baird says.
"People expect continuous improvement to mean more, rather than you drop something and pick up something else. The expectations placed on public libraries are massive."
Library users spent more than 14 million hours on Wi-Fi and public access devices in public libraries in 2023-24. (Supplied: Newcastle Libraries)
Libraries are expensive operations to run.
"The cost of keeping the libraries open … is increasing much higher than any rise in taxation," Cowell says.
"Even if the funding is maintained, that means that each year it's decreasing."
Nor has funding factored in the higher staffing costs incurred by libraries' ever-expanding remit.
"You have someone come in, Centrelink sent them down, they don't know what to do, so you have a librarian doing tech support for federal government requirements," Baird says.
"It's pushing load onto them, so they can't be doing other work."
Libraries find efficiencies where they can.
"AI helps; you'll find that in most libraries now you do your loans yourself, you speak to a staff member about other things other than transactions, and that's why programs can increase," Cowell says.
Other efficiency measures are more radical — and, to some, controversial.
Embracing a new model
Lambton library, a small suburban branch with low visitation numbers, is Newcastle Libraries' first unstaffed branch.
In 2022, the building was refurbished and Open+ technology installed, allowing library users to access the branch with their card and a PIN between 7am and 9pm every day.
So far, the new self-service model has been a success.
"Visitation has skyrocketed," Baird says.
The increased opening times allow people to drop by in the morning when they're walking their dog or on the way home after work. The space is popular among remote workers, too.
Baird believes we'll see more unstaffed libraries in coming years but acknowledges the model doesn't work everywhere.
A branch in a low-socioeconomic suburb requires the physical space for more computers and librarians to assist with tech support, for example.
"It's a model that helps communities with smaller libraries," Baird says.
"With an unstaffed branch, you can open longer, provide more access as long as the community's engaged, as long as it is in a public space, as long as it's a borrowing library, and that's what Lambton is."
The self-service model — which still requires a level of staffing to maintain the collection — offers efficiencies but has its limits.
"Libraries saw Open+ access technology as a magic silver bullet that would solve all the problems, and I don't think it does," Baird says.
"You need to acknowledge the type of library, the type of visitation and what people want from you.
"If all our libraries were unstaffed, I don't think they'd be as popular. Part of libraries is humanity, community and realness, and that's not very sexy. People give you money for new technology. They won't give you money for operation staffing because that's not groovy, but that's what our community asks for."
