Sophia A.

Demetri
9/22/2015
LIS 631-01

One Community one Library

For my research I decided to look up the Asian community, as well as the Filipino
community and their relevance to the Greensboro Public Library. Of course, all groups are
relevant to any library, but I just decided to put the focus on these communities specifically. In
addition to this, I also am looking at things like other businesses in the area, and seeing if theres
a pattern in regards to the Asian communities in those specific locales.
Naturally, I ended up making several maps, but I ended up stopping after the tenth map or
Map 9 as the website calls it. But dont worry, I wont bore you too much with the details.
The first map I made focused on was of the generations of adults living near the Greensboro
Public Library. It appears that there is quite a plethora of adults that live near said library. As a
matter of fact the number of adults that appear to be in that area is 3,799-33,583. I find that
almost hard to believe, but then again Ive never really counted all the adult residents of
Greensboro myself. I checked the Percentage of Parent-Child by 2015 and discovered a good
number of these adults do have families of their own. The percentages of those with families
range from 27.23% -29.09% and 29.10%-31.57%. The number of children Under 6 and 6-17
in these households consist of the following percentile; 4.24%-5.49% and 6.51%-7.49%, near the
Greensboro Public Library. In regards to the Asian population though, the percentiles featured in
this area consisted of mostly the 0.79%-2.22% demographic with a touch of the 2.23%-75.33%
demographic close by. The percentile of those with Filipino ancestry though is surprisingly
small; as a matter of fact the largest percentage in the aforementioned area is no more than
0.01%-0.09%.
So it appears that arent a lot of Asian families living close to the Greensboro Public
library. This more than likely means that if someone hosted a sort of ethnic festival in honor of
the Asian community we could end up having a smaller turnout. This also made me wonder why
the Asian population is so small around here. Which brings us to two more topics; food service,
and crime rate.
In regards to food service, I ended up looking into the Food and Beverages Consumer
Price Index. This was to see how much food service may have impacted the Asian population
(along with other populations) living in Greensboro. How does this affect the library business?
Well, if you think about it, anything and everything affects the library, especially the peoples
welfare which includes access to the basic necessities in life like groceries. Upon checking the

data for this I realized that Greensboro is actually in the smallest percentile of the consumer price
index ranging at 0.00-0.09. So apparently the food service industry is actually doing very well
around here.
Next I will address the criminal issues around Greensboro and its public library. As we
all know, public libraries are dependent on government funding; and not too long ago, I had done
an article summary about budget cuts happening to a library in New Jerseys Middleton
Township following the events of Hurricane Sandy. (Heres a link to the article:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/02/16/can-libraries-survive-in-an-era-of-budgetcutbacks.html). Even though the article was printed a couple of years ago, the facts still hold
true now. While there are many things that government funding goes towards like funding
emergency services, the library is usually one that is sadly underfunded, especially after events
like hurricanes. And even though natural disasters are not the case of the topic at hand, things
like this along with crime rates can very much contribute to underfunding of libraries. Speaking
crime rates, that is the focus of my next couple of maps.
According to my fifth map, the Forcible Robbery Index of this year, Greensboro is
actually in the second highest percentile of forcible robberies, more specifically 129.00-152.99,
with the highest being 153.00-199.00. I recall from last semester learning that some public
libraries end up in the more questionable areas of bigger cities whereas in the past they used to
be in places like the center of the town, but of course that was before the city started expanding.
But despite the fact that there is a lot of robbery in the area near the Greensboro public library,
there is actually a smaller amount of rape in the same area and this looking at the whole county.
According to the data I have discovered, Guilford County is in 16.00-108.99 percentile of the
Forcible Rape Index with the largest percentile being 169.00-187.00. So apparently while
there is a lot of robbery near the Greensboro Public Library, there really isnt as much rape in
Guilford County as would presume based on recent reports I have received from the campus
police. However, that does not mean that either of these crimes should be overlooked, in the
same way that we should not overlook the Asian community in Greensboro either.
Based on this evidence though, I dont think that the crime rate effects library patronage
anymore than it would in any other major city. Especially considering the fact that other major
cities in North Carolina have similar percentages of crime (some larger than others) but I havent
heard about it changing the number of folks attending their libraries recently. But then again that
would require a different set of research beyond the maps that I have.
Next I will address a very important topic that is perhaps the biggest reason for the people
to go to the library, because their children have school projects due. Perhaps since I first entered
the MLIS program, Ive heard of the librarys importance in the lives of young students,
especially when comes to things like major projects or research papers. And because of this, I
decided to check the percentage of Elementary & Secondary Schools (#Employees).
Apparently, there are actually a huge number of folks employed by the lower school system in

this great city of ours. In the areas that are closest to the branches of the Greensboro Public
Library, you will find the larger percentages of folks who have jobs related to elementary
education living there. The numbers featured for this demographic include 13-38, 39-111, with a
touch of the 112-3,003 group. You might wonder how this specifically affects the Asian and
Filipino demographic, but in the end doesnt education in all its forms affect every demographic?
This brings us to another set of data, those affiliated with the big universities and colleges.
In what should be my last set of statistics for this paper, I am going to bring up Colleges
and Universities (#of Employees). To be perfectly honest, it seems that some areas of
Greensboro having more numbers of College/University employees living in the area than
others. The ones featured closest to the Greensboro Public Library however appear to be in the
more extreme levels of the given demographic. These include the smallest (0-1), the largest
(494-11,825), and a small exception being in the second smallest numerical range of 2-12.
Interestingly enough, it seems that number of employees for the smaller educations like
elementary school is much larger than the number of folks for the higher educations of colleges
and universities. Though at the same time, a part of me should not be too surprised at this logic
due to the fact that there are normally more secondary schools in any given town than there
colleges. But at the same time, there are at least ten colleges in Greensboro, NC alone according
to http://www.citytowninfo.com/places/north-carolina/greensboro/colleges, which would lead
one to assume that there would be a potentially bigger number of local professors.
Based on what I have discovered, it seems that most of data I have looked into affects not
just one race of people, but all the races that call the city of Greensboro home. Whether it be
crime rates, lower education, higher education, or even something as simple the Consumer Price
Index of your everyday groceries, we are all affected by the same major factors in some form or
another. And as hard to believe as it is, our public libraries are affected by all this too.
Especially the crime rates that could lead to needing tighter security (like they do in my
hometown of Fayetteville, NC but thats another story).
Something else I have come to realize, especially considering what this was intended to
be about, is how much of a minority the Asian and Filipino populations are to the city of
Greensboro, NC. While I know majority rules as they say, I am also aware that the little guy
should not be overlooked either. Unfortunately, the only ways I know of to represent this
particular people in our library is by one, having more media resources relevant to Asian culture
in the library and two putting emphasis on Asian-Pacific Heritage month which I believe the
libraries already do. But as I established before, it is hard to put emphasis on a people, who only
make up so much of our citys population. Yet despite it all, I am aware of every persons
importance in society and hope than every demographic will have a chance to shine in our
community.
In conclusion, this was a very thought provoking experience, and as a result, I may use
maps a little more often in my research in the future.