Jeff's Community Informatics Projects

Data Collection

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Data collection for the project was driven by a general goal: creation of a sustainable database.

To appropriately study libraries that serve African American communities one must first consider what constitutes a significantly African American community in the first place.  Like many Midwest states Illinois is a mixture of large cities, stretches of open rural areas and clusters of suburbs.  People come from a wide array of class backgrounds and occupations and may consider their local community to be anything from the just neighbors down the road to an entire city.  Likewise, African American communities exist in many capacities in Illinois and in order to illustrate a state-wide and accurate portrayal a theoretical sampling of six counties was taken.  Three variables were considered in the county selection process: total county population, the proportion of African Americans, and median household income.  These three variables served to operationalize the concepts of locale (rural and small town/city), racial composition (that is, African-American presence), and class (defined here by income).  Figure 3.1 shows a relative comparison.  The following data was pulled from the public 2000 census records.

Illinois County		Library System	Total Pop	Percent Afro-Am	Total Afro-Am Pop	Median Household Income
Pulaski		Shawnee	7,348	31.0%	2,278	25,361
Alexander		Shawnee	9,590	34.9%	3,347	26,042
Champaign		Lincoln Trail	179,669	11.2%	20,122	37,780
Peoria		Alliance	183,433	16.1%	29,533	39,978
St. Clair		Lewis & Clark	256,082	28.8%	73,752	39,148
State	N/A		12,419,293	15.1%	1,876,875	46,590

Figure 3.1 – General county statistics.

Pulaski and Alexander County were chosen to represent the rural areas in the southern parts of the state.  They both hold similar histories and are generally economically disadvantaged when compared to the rest of the state.  They hold African American communities that are nearly twice those of the state at large.  Consequently it could be said that they are poor, rural, and largely African American.

Champaign and Peoria County at first glance appear to have African-American populations that match the state-wide averages.  Upon closer investigation, however, it is revealed that they contain townships with both large numbers and high proportions of African-Americans.  St. Clair County, on the other hand, clearly has a larger African-American population.  These three represent a mixture of small-suburbs/towns, small-city and rural life and have a mid-level median income that sits just below the state average.  Together they can be labeled as working -class, medium-size and mixed locale, and somewhat African-American.
Together these counties represent a variety of African American communities that reside in a diverse set of arrangements, from small city to rural, from working class or poor to middle class, and from largely African-American to only somewhat African-American.  Large urban centers, most notably the Chicagoland area, were exempt from this analysis for two reasons.  First, too little attention is paid (and funding given) to small community libraries.  Second, the analysis of the Chicago metropolitan area would be considerably more complex, initial mappings of the area identified over 40 libraries that could be candidates for the survey.  Time constraints would not permit a study of such a scale.

Libraries, however, do not serve entire counties, nor do most communities span entire counties.  To really understand which libraries serve individual Black communities we need to turn up the microscope.  Consequently the Census 2000 data was consulted by township (and in the case of Peoria, tract) to capture more specific demographics.  Two categories were created to qualify African-American communities: significant (blue) and predominant (orange).  Different criteria were employed for each county, as their populations and township/precinct breakdowns differed.  Ultimately the goal was to construct a list (a simple binomial typology) of libraries that served either communities that were significantly African-American (blue) or predominantly African-American (orange) based on both proportions and total population.  The method used for each county are as follows:

In Alexander and Pulaski county any precincts with an African-American population resting between the county average (31/35%) and 50% was marked as blue.  Those with an African-American population of over 50% were marked as orange.  Only precincts with over 200 individuals were eligible for selection; most of the population in each county was concentrated around the only small cities, Cairo and Mounds.  Smaller precincts were screened out because they (1) likely did not have a library, and (2) proportions could easily be thrown off with such small numbers of people.

Only a few libraries exist in this area.  In general if a library was closest to a given precinct it was considered to be the library that served that precinct.  In some cases potential library patrons might have to drive a few towns over to get to the library.  If a library served a precinct qualified as orange, then it was tagged as such, and likewise for blue.

Peoria County merited two levels of scrutiny, as only the Peoria City township had an African-American population that comprised over 10% of the total.  It made more sense to let the libraries determine the counting method, so a general list of all counties with African American populations over 16.1% (the city-wide average) was created and set aside.  Each library was then located and assigned to a census tract (or several tracts) that it would potentially serve.  The total number (population) of African-Americans for each census tract on the list was then calculated and added up for each library (with some overlap possible, as some libraries likely served a few tracts).  Then, based on the total African-American population served at each library they were categorized as orange (the top 3) or blue (the 4th and 5th).

As the research for this report was conducted at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, the author utilized more specific local knowledge of the libraries in the area.  The Census numbers were consulted to tag a few precincts but if one were to look at just the population proportions in comparison to the state there would be scarcely a blue precinct on the list.  Instead, those with a percentage above the local average were marked as blue.  Two libraries serve the Champaign area, one of which caters specifically to the African-American community.  This library was classified as orange, and the other three as blue.

St. Clair County presented a few unusual demographic circumstances.  Several townships were straight forward, such as Washington Park, Centreville city and East St. Louis, which all contained African American populations making up over 90% of the total in the area and numbering in the thousands overall.  Others presented challenges, such as Brooklyn village, which only had around 700 people, but 99% of them were African American.  Alternatively there was Cahokia, which only was 39% African-American, but this 39% totaled over 6000 people, more than the neighboring Centreville, which was 96% African American.  Those townships and precincts that represented a conflict between sheer numbers and proportion of African Americans were categorized as blue.  Those both high numbers and a high proportion were tagged as orange.  Libraries in the area were tracked down on Google Maps and assigned just like they were for Alexander and Pulaski County.

Figure 3.2, the listing of all libraries and locations, is on the following page.

The List (Typology)

Libraries marked in blue were considered those that served communities with significant African-American populations, whereas those marked in orange serve communities who are considered predominantly African-American. Those highlighted in gray received phone calls, those in Black were visited in person. Websites were consulted for many, but not all, libraries on the list.

County	City	Library
Peoria	Peoria	Lincoln Branch Library
Peoria	Peoria	McClure Branch Library
Peoria	Peoria	Peoria Public Library
Peoria	Peoria	RiverWest Library
Peoria	Peoria	South Side Library

St. Clair	Washington Park	Washington Park Public Library
St. Clair	Fairview Heights	Fairview Heights Public Library
St. Clair	Cahokia	Cahokia P.L.D.
St. Clair	Centreville	Centreville Public Library
St. Clair	Madison City	Madison Public Library
St. Clair	East St. Louis	East St. Louis Public Library
St. Clair	Brooklyn	Venice Library

Champaign	Rantoul	Rantoul Public Library
Champaign	Mahomet	Mahomet Public Library District
Champaign	Urbana	The Urbana Free Library
Champaign	Champaign	Champaign Public Library
Champaign	Champaign	Douglass Branch Library

Alexander	Cairo	Cairo Public Library
Alexander	Olive Branch	Dodge Public Library

Pulaski	Mounds City	Mounds City Public Library
Pulaski	Mounds	Mounds Public Library
Pulaski	Dongola	Dongola P.L.D.

Figure 3.2 – A Typology of Communities and Libraries

Once the list of libraries had been collected three databases were consulted for address, phone number, and website information: The Illinois Public Library Statistics report for the 2005-2006 fiscal year (put out by the Library Research Center at UIUC), Public Libraries.com (a free non-affiliated informational website), and eliillinois.com (Every Library in ILLINET, a state governmental website).  Use of these three sources gave up to date information and the ability to cross check.  They also provided some basic information (hours and population served) for the database.

A sample of a few libraries was then contacted from each county.  Websites were consulted for many, and phone calls were made to a few.  The author went out to visit the Urbana Free Library and both branches of the Champaign Public Library in person.  At the time of this report’s writing all together twenty one libraries had been surveyed for the database.  The ground work for the survey of 34 additional libraries has been laid, and future updates will expand this analysis to construct an encompassing and accurate image of libraries that serve African-American communities of various classes, locations, and proportions.

Survey Design

As with most research studies the survey design experienced several changes and revisions over time.  It quickly became apparent just how non technical most librarians answering the survey were.  Several areas had to be simplified and many items were condensed to become a bit more subjective in their collection.  This might actually be considered a beneficial alteration, as it ensures that the data remain accessible for general readers.  In any event, data in some form or another was collected for each category: general, public computers, internet services, software, and policy and staff.  Additional documentation information was included for each library to help reflect and clarify some of the issues and responses that might not fit into the database design.

In order to help capture a sense of each library’s serving capacity and also to build in an immediate usefulness into the database contact information (address, phone number, and website) was recorded for each specific library, as well as hours of operation, population served, and total staff.  In many ways the database can serve as an outright resource right off the bat—a comprehensive listing of every library serving African American communities in the 6 selected counties (minus Chicago, of course).

Other questions were asked to mirror those collected on a state-wide level by Bertot.  Computer workstation availability, plans for upgrades, the factors that influence said upgrades, and details about internet access all were collected in manners that would present them as comparable to the larger dataset.

Some items had to be dropped because they either didn’t make sense or were just not found.  For instance, no libraries surveyed featured rooms for private computer use.

Digitization occurred two ways in the process of this project.  On the one side, several websites and databases were accessed (as previously mentioned) to gather information about the various libraries.  This implicitly tested and verified their usefulness and also cited potential needs.  For instance, the Every Library in Illinois state database did not have hours for several libraries.  On the other side of the coin all data collected the web, phone, and in-person was entered into a spreadsheet that, once fully populated, could be easily utilized as a source of statistical comparison data.  It will also be freely available on the web to help assist future research and policy studies.  The data is organized and documented, and if properly integrated into a data-driven website, could be very searchable.