Heights Libraries conducting community survey in March

To ensure that it can give the Cleveland Heights-University Heights community the best possible services in the coming years, Heights Libraries will conduct a community survey from late February through March.

The library has contracted with the Community Research Institute at Baldwin Wallace University (BWU) to survey by phone residents of Cleveland Heights, University Heights, and selected areas of surrounding communities. Residents, library customers and noncustomers alike will be called at random, but residents who do not receive a call are encouraged to fill out the survey online at www.heightslibrary.org or in person at any of the four Heights Libraries branches.

The community survey is the follow-up to a large community study conducted by Heights Libraries in 2012. In April 2012, the Library contracted with the Northern Ohio Data and Information Service (NODIS) at Cleveland State University’s Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs to perform a comprehensive analysis of demographic and socioeconomic conditions, and the borrowing patterns of residents and patrons in our community.

The NODIS report uses the Cleveland Heights-University Heights City School District boundaries. Demographic and socioeconomic data were gathered from the 2010 Census and the Census Bureau’s 2006–10 American Community Survey. Data on patrons and borrowing were obtained from CLEVNET records and cover the year 2011 and the first quarter of 2012.

Heights Libraries received the report in July 2012, and soon afterward the public service managers formed the NODIS Report Action Committee to analyze the data, find actionable items, and determine what further information could and should be gathered from a related community survey to be conducted by BWU. Services provided by BWU include designing and conducting the survey, tabulating and analyzing the results, and writing a final report, which will be made available to the public.

The decision to collect and study this information was prompted by a desire to make data-driven decisions about programming, collections, services, outreach and marketing, thereby ensuring the system’s resources are being used in the most efficient way possible to benefit the members of the community. The timing of the study and survey coincides with the library's strategic planning process for 2014–15.