Large age and gender differences in use of public libraries

A recent Statistics Norway survey has uncovered large age and gender differences in the use of public libraries. While 63 per cent of Norway's population between the ages of 12 and 15 have visited a public library in the past three months, the same is true of only 22 per cent of people aged 65 to 79. Forty per cent of all women visited a public library during the period, against only 26 per cent of the men.

When we restricted our survey only to library users, i.e. those who have actually visited a public library in the last 12 months, and looked at how often they visit public libraries, the differences were less pronounced. In most of the age groups, around one-third visited a library 10 or more times over the past 12 months. A gap, however, was uncovered between the two oldest age groups: 28 per cent of library users aged 45-64 visited the library that often, against all of 45 per cent of those aged 65-79. This shows that once the elderly start to use the library, they visit it quite often.

Female and male library users are nearly equal when it comes to how often they visit a library: 34 per cent of female library users and 32 per cent of male library users said that they had visited a public library 10 or more times over the past 12 months.

Stable use of public libraries

Usage of public libraries has remained extremely stable over the past 10 years. Thirty-three percent of the population have visited a public library in the past three months, and 47 per cent in the last 12 months. A similar survey from 1998 showed that 30 per cent of the population had visited a library in the past three months, and 45 per cent in the last 12 months.

New Statistics
Use of public libraries, 1998.
The statistics are published in Rapport 98/19. For more information, contact: Heidi.Kristin.Reppen@ssb.no, tel. +47 21 09 44 73.

Weekly Bulletin issue no. 44, 1998