Seattle public library as place: Nonparametric analyses of community perceptions and attitudes

Abstract

In an attempt to characterize the role(s) – social, political, cultural, or informational – of an individual library in the lives of community members, we conducted 226 interviews among people within and nearby the newly‐constructed Central Library building of the Seattle Public Library. This poster presents the results of exploratory and nonparametric quantitative analyses of coded qualitative data to reveal potentially fruitful associations between the participants' characteristics and their perceptions and attitudes toward the Central Library as a physical or symbolic space. While not attempting to generalize beyond our sample, these associations may nevertheless be useful to guide future studies on the roles of libraries in society.