PEW Library Quiz

by Danny

One of the last things I’ve managed to do here is establish a customised version of the PEW Research Internet Project’s Library User Quiz. The quiz asks you various questions about public libraries and profiles you based on your answers. You may be a ‘Library Lover’ (if you’re not then you need to have a word with yourself), an ‘Information Omnivore’ or ‘Off the Grid’. The quiz also shows you how your answers compare to the American public (sadly this only has data for the US).

The really useful thing about the quiz is that you can register your organisation an account, embed a personalised widget on your website/OPAC, and then see the results. Again you can see how your patrons compare to the US public, but most usefully it will give you an idea of your patrons general attitudes towards libraries (and by association you).

Unfortunately our OPAC is only available on college computers so I can’t provide a link, but the images below show where it is embedded.

 

 

You have to have at least 5 submissions before PEW will start to show you how your personal results compare with the wider results of your own group, in this case our college students. I took the quiz 5 times pretending to be a different student each time, hence these results are not the best but its just for illustrative purposes, to show you what I’ve done and what the quiz can do.

In all, although this only has data for US citizens (and only public libraries at that) it is still a useful tool for gauging your patrons attitudes, and hopefully will expand in future.