Settling in: how newcomers use a public library
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to describe how recent immigrants and refugees to Canada (“newcomers”) use the facilities of a large, urban public library. As the library previously surveyed the general user population, the responses to the two surveys can be compared. Design/methodology/approach Questionnaires were administered as patrons were leaving Surrey Libraries Branches to adult public library members who self-identified as newcomers who arrived in Canada within the previous ten years. Findings The pattern of library use by newcomers differed from that of the general population. They visited more frequently and stayed longer. Newcomers were heavier users of library services and used a wider range of services. They used the library branch as a public place. The library provided them with a place to study, read or meet other people. Research limitations/implications The study was exploratory. The small sample size and the data collection process do not allow extrapolation to the underlying population. Practical implications Recent newcomers often have similar informational, psychological and social needs. Public libraries can play a role in assisting newcomers during their adjustment process. Originality/value Researchers worked closely with library management to develop questions based on decision usefulness. An earlier in-house study allowed comparisons to be made between branch use by newcomers and general library users. Canadian studies into government policy, along with immigrant and refugee studies, provide context for the survey results.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.007 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.011 | 0.004 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.008 | 0.003 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.004 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.010 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".