Perceptions on Library Funding

OCLC was awarded a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to explore attitudes and perceptions about library funding and to evaluate the potential of a large-scale marketing and advocacy campaign to increase public library funding in the U.S.

Among the findings from the report:

-       Library funding support is only marginally related to library visitation.

-       Perceptions of librarians are an important predictor of library funding support..

-       Voters who see the library as a 'transformational' force as opposed to an 'informational' source are more likely to increase taxes in its support.

The report suggests that targeting marketing messages to the right segments of the voting public is key to driving increased support for U.S. public libraries.

De Rosa, C., Johnson, J., Gauder, B., Limes, R., Smith, S., & Burnett, L. (2008). From awareness to funding: A study of library support in America. Dublin, OH: https://www.oclc.org/content/dam/oclc/reports/funding/fullreport.pdf

Common Core Standards – Teacher vs. Public Awareness

According to a report by the DC-based Achieve, although 46 states and Washington, D.C. have adopted the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), less than a quarter of the general public knows about the academic standards for K-12 education that are designed to prepare students for college and the workforce. A whopping three fourths of the voting public say they’ve heard nothing or not much about the standards in math and English.

Other key findings include:

-       Voters and teachers strongly support common standards and assessments. Voter support remains strong regardless of age, education level, race, ethnicity, or party affiliation.

-       There has been a significant increase in awareness of the Common Core State Standards among teachers since August 2011, while awareness of the CCSS continues to be very low among voters.

-       The more teachers know about the CCSS, the more positive impression they have of the standards. Similarly, voters who are aware of the Common Core hold a net favorable view of the standards.

-       A majority of both voters and teachers support the CCSS assessments and support holds when more information on the assessments is provided.

-       However, there are mixed reactions to some specific components of the new assessments, although voters and teachers are fairly consistent in their views on the highest and lowest rated assessment components.

Achieve (2012). Growing awareness, growing support: Teacher and voter understanding of the Common Core state standards & assessments. Washington, D.C.: Achieve. https://www.achieve.org/files/GrowingAwarenessGrowingSupportreportFINAL72012.pdf

Cyber Security Awareness Improvements

According to a study by Wombat Security Technologies, technology users today are more likely to recognize a phishing attack than they were a year ago. Across all of the industries the participants were from, they overall performed better this year on questions around identifying phishing attacks, answering incorrectly only a quarter of the time on average, compared to a little over a quarter in 2016. This report offers an opportunity for organizations to assess their end users’ cybersecurity knowledge and evaluate how proactive they are being on the security awareness training front.

Wombat Security Technologies (2017). Wombat Security’s 2017 beyond the phish report. Pittsburgh, PA: Wombat Security Technologies. https://info.wombatsecurity.com/hubfs/2017%20Beyond%20the%20Phish%20Report/Wombat_BeyondthePhish17_FINAL.pdf?submissionGuid=eab8dae3-5e19-45ea-a59c-7c26151aa461