{"id":975432,"date":"2026-05-21T11:49:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T11:49:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/975432\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T11:49:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T11:49:16","slug":"ethnic-minorities-lead-library-use-as-overall-numbers-fall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/975432\/","title":{"rendered":"Ethnic minorities lead library use as overall numbers fall"},"content":{"rendered":"

Public libraries in England are used the most by people from Asian and Mixed Ethnic backgrounds, and least by white respondents, according to the latest government figures.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Less than one in five white respondents 16 and older reported using a public library in the Government\u2019s most recent participation survey \u2013 the lowest rate of any ethnic group surveyed.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The chart above shows usage clustered tightly between 19% and 25%, but the ordering indicates an arguably unexpected result. <\/p>\n

Every non-white ethnic group surveyed used libraries at or above the national average of 20%, but white respondents, at 19%, were the only group to fall below it \u2013 six percentage points behind the joint leaders, Asian\/Asian British and Mixed\/Multiple Ethnic Groups, both on 25%.<\/p>\n

Darren Morris, a library supervisor at Twickenham Library who has worked there for 20 years, claimed these figures match his experience of who attends the library. <\/p>\n

He added: \u201cEthnicity wise, my impression is it\u2019s quite mixed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Measuring visits by ethnicity, libraries also stand out when set against other cultural activities. <\/p>\n

The same survey data records that 91% of white respondents had engaged in the arts in the past year, and 70% had visited a heritage site. <\/p>\n

Both of these figures are above the national average and higher than the rates for most other ethnic groups. <\/p>\n

For museums and galleries, the white figure of 33% sits exactly on the average, meaning libraries are the only one of the four cultural activities measured where white respondents are the least likely group to take part. <\/p>\n

They are also visited on the whole the least out of any cultural space: of all respondents, 33% said they had visited a museum in the last year, and 67% said they had visited a cultural or heritage site.<\/p>\n

The question is then why libraries are the exception. <\/p>\n

The most obvious reason is that library use itself has changed \u2013 once exclusively places to borrow and read books, they now function as community hubs and \u2018third spaces\u2019 \u2013 defined as a social environment separated from a home or workplace. <\/p>\n

Visitor numbers also saw an unsurprising drop when Covid-19 hit the country.<\/p>\n

Morris explained that the function of libraries has changed in his experience, with increased dealings of e-books and offerings of community sessions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s one thing that has changed,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I started we\u2019d just deal with physical books, but now it\u2019s a lot of e-books. A lot of books and magazines are available on our website now instead of exclusively physical copies. <\/p>\n

\u201cE-books really shot up in usage during Covid, but it was probably going that way anyway.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s obviously not just about the books anymore. It\u2019s much more of a community hub nowadays. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere are various community groups, kids groups, rooms we hire out, citizens advice bureau sessions.\u201d<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the London Library, an independent subscription library founded in 1841, made the same point about the changing role of libraries.<\/p>\n

\u201cLibraries as a third space is an important aspect of the role they play in people\u2019s lives,\u201d they said. <\/p>\n

\u201cMembers value the unique studious setting which is a haven away from the workplace and the distractions of being at home.<\/p>\n

\u201cBook borrowing has declined, but we continue to loan around 60,000 books per year in addition to the huge amount of use that our fantastic range of online resources and eBooks get.<\/p>\n

\u201cLibraries are different things to different people.\u201d<\/p>\n

The idea that a community might rely on third spaces because mainstream institutions are not meeting its needs has been made directly elsewhere. <\/p>\n

In a 2019 conference paper<\/a> delivered at SOAS University of London, author Habeeb Akande described the \u2018third Space\u2019 as \u201can institution that seeks to fulfil the particular needs of a faith community which are not being met by mosques, schools or traditional religious institutions.\u201d <\/p>\n

It noted that \u201ca Third Space can be a community centre, library, or social media networking site.\u201d <\/p>\n

Writing specifically about Black British Muslim communities, Akande argued that such spaces are created \u201cto cater to the needs of isolated or excluded\u201d subgroups.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Public libraries in England are used the most by people from Asian and Mixed Ethnic backgrounds, and least…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":975433,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,2814,393,4884,26113,257,16,15],"class_list":["post-975432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-london","tag-britain","tag-data","tag-england","tag-great-britain","tag-library","tag-london","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116612417040939159","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/975432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=975432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/975432\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/975433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=975432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=975432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=975432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}