IN FEBRUARY 2014, Lansing-based EPIC-MRA began contacting 500-600 Ann Arbor District Library (AADL) residents about their satisfaction with the library. EPIC-MRA will be paid $25,000 to conduct the survey.

According to Nancy Kaplan, who serves on the AADL Board of Directors, in January 2013 “a Communications Committee was established for one year to develop a communications audit and plan. This occurred post November 2012 failure of the ballot proposal to bond for a new library.”

Communications is a part of the Ann Arbor District Library’s 2010 – 2015 Strategic Plan. Kaplan says there are three major goals: “to learn who is and is not using the library and why and why not; communicate the value and return on investment of the library to the community and how that might be increased; market services to current patrons and non-users.”

Kaplan said that AADL Executive Director Josie Parker recommended Allerton-Hill Consulting to the AADL Board’s Communications Committee.

Engaging Allerton-Hill has raised suspicions among some who take a keen interest in the management of the local library system. The firm does political advocacy and works on public financing ballot question issues.

Dr. Donald Salberg is a Ward 2 resident who often attends Library Board meetings. He   commented in response to a piece about the AADL Board’s January 2014 meeting at which the survey was announced: “The only reason for the AADL library board contracting for another survey is to use the results to convince voters to pass a bond referendum for a new library….”

Nancy Kaplan’s explanation is that “Allerton-Hill recommended a Community Satisfaction Survey to determine the priorities and public perception of the library.” At that January 2014 AADL Board meeting EPIC-MRA was charged to produce a “…statistically valid survey of (the) adult resident constituency to measure, among other things, the publics’s perception of the role libraries play in modern society, both generally, and pertaining to AADL in particular. As part of this inquiry, there is interest in quantifying the public’s recognition of the products and services provided by AADL, their regard for AADL as a public institution in the region and the avenues through which they obtain information about library services and offerings.”

Indeed, according to a resident who took the 2014 survey,  “there were questions about the library’s services and how I use those services. There were also questions about the library’s present millage rate, transit issues and taxes.”

In March 2012, EPIC-MRA completed a similar survey for the Ann Arbor District Library. Those results are archived on the Ann Arbor District Library’s website.

The 2012 survey asked residents to identify “problems or issues area residents say they are concerned about.” In response, 29 percent of people responded “jobs”; 24 percent of people responded “schools,” and 14 percent of respondents said they were most concerned about the “roads.”

In addition, 66 percent of those surveyed in 2012 said that “property taxes and fees you pay to fund those services” were “too high.” Respondents were asked “What library services have you used?” Seventy percent of those surveyed replied that they’d borrowed materials from the library, primarily books and DVDs.

According to Nancy Kaplan,  the present survey is expected to take approximately six to eight weeks to complete.

“Of course, this publicly funded effort will be followed with a full public report,” she wrote in an email. That should be sometime in Spring 2014.