The Office of Financial Management (OFM) just released their Research Brief 54: Participating in Recreation and Culture in Washington State (download the pdf). The survey polls Washington residents on the recreational and cultural activities they participate in during their free time, and library use is one of the seven key activities covered. The data covers answers received during 2008, and was compared geographically and against previous such surveys in 2006 and 2004. So how did libraries do?

Frequency of participation in library use for 2008 was 63% (the second highest); but that’s just strictly the percentage of residents that have used the library at least once during the year. Looking at the actual frequency of use, libraries fared very well, with the top numbers of repeat users. So if 63 out of 100 residents used a library at least once, 12 residents out of 100 used the library more than 41 times during the year, and another 19 out of 100 used the library 11-40 times. It seems as though people who like to use the library, like to use it frequently.

Library participation was higher in Western Washington than in Eastern Washington by about 10%. The highest participation was in King County, and the lowest was in the Yakima/Tri-cities areas. Overall participation was down somewhat from 2006 and 2004.

For more details about geographic boundaries, or to compare library statistics to the other six activities presented, you can check out the OFM research briefs page, or download the survey directly.