Municipal governments typically play a crucial role in managing public libraries, museums, art galleries, theaters, heritage sites, festivals, and other cultural institutions. Due to the extent of management that often includes very different scenarios, events, and management processes, managing library, art, and cultural services within any municipality is a challenge on the best of days. However, there’s one distinct way that you can make that management easier: by adopting public reporting initiatives. After all, you service the public, so why not get their assistance?

Public reporting enables cultural services to provide greater transparency, inclusivity, accountability, and streamlined communications between municipalities and the public and also internally within municipal departments. You can implement public reporting using the latest technologies that make it easy to implement, manage, and use.

In this guide, we’ll discuss how public reporting can help your organization achieve more efficacious and efficient results within your departments and teams. Let’s dive in.

Benefits of Public Reporting for Library Management

Libraries were hit hard during the pandemic and have struggled to regain their losses. A 2022 survey conducted by the Urban Libraries Council reported a 45 percent decrease in physical visits to library facilities compared to 2019. ⁽¹⁾

Despite the decreased number of visitors, libraries saw an average 8% budgetary increase during the same period. ⁽²⁾

The U.S. public library numbers have been falling since 2010. However, the noted drop from 2019 to 2021 only rebounded by a small amount between 2019 and 2022. To put things into perspective, the highest number of visits before the downward trend was back in 2011, with just under 2.5 billion visits and circulations. As of 2022, the numbers have only improved a fraction, as you can see in the graph below. ⁽³⁾

Information Source: Publisher’s Weekly and the Institute of Museum and Library Services ⁽³⁾.

Libraries could use some assistance getting back to the sort of numbers we saw pre-pandemic. So, that is where new ideas and new technologies come into play to help municipalities shape and evolve their library services to meet the demands of an ever-evolving societal landscape. One such technology is public reporting, which can dramatically shape how we manage libraries and similar facilities. 

Public reporting enables libraries to ask their users direct questions about how they could improve their services to the community. It also provides a mechanism for the public to provide feedback on services and what might entice them to spend more time at the library and other associated facilities.

Streamlining Cultural Services with Efficient Public Reporting

Municipal management of cultural services, including museums, galleries, and cultural centers, works better when you hear what those community stakeholders have to say about the services. Public reporting enables easy implementation of surveys, questionnaires, or other forms that municipal managers can use to query the public to find out what is important to them. With a tool like public reporting, it’s easy to imagine a dozen ways in which you could use it for better event planning, staffing, or budget allocation decisions. 

Public reporting helps cultural services better understand what their stakeholders want and expect. This insight enables better experience management and promotes more efficient communication between the public and the municipality. Furthermore, public reporting inspires accountability, with stakeholders taking action and speaking out to shape the future of local cultural services.

Leveraging Technology for Optimized Public Reporting Systems

Public reporting in the past meant a drop box where people could deposit a physical form. Of course, this meant that only those willing to make the trek to the facility would have a say in shaping the future available services. With today’s technology, it’s more accessible than ever for libraries and cultural sites to implement a fast and efficient (not to mention efficacious) public reporting system.

Sources say that there are around 7 billion smartphones in the world as of June of 2024. ⁽⁴⁾

With 90% of people carrying around smartphones, it’s easy to get their involvement with the right tools. In fact, as you can see in the previous graph, the growth of digital ‘rentals’ from libraries has steadily increased since its inception in 2003. ⁽⁵⁾

Due to our cultural normalization of smartphones, libraries can implement public reporting and mobile reporting mechanisms to take advantage of the technological trend. One such leading public reporting mechanism is a feature of the 1st Reporting app.

Customizing Reporting Solutions for Unique Needs

The 1st Reporting app is a mobile application that works on Android (download on Google Play), iOS (download on The Apple App Store), or via this website (click here to start a free trial, or contact us to set up a personalized demonstration with one of our team members. The application provides custom form building and dissemination to a subscribed team (such as facility staff) or for public reporting use. All you need to do to get started is sign up for the app and build your custom public reporting form. Then, share the link to the form with your target audience and start collecting data.

There are also a bunch of other features, like customized notifications and dynamic linking, so you can use the app to manage your building with a maintenance team, as well as for public reporting, strategic oversight, and information collection.

Customizing Reporting Solutions for Unique Needs

Customizable forms are critical to suit the specific needs of libraries and cultural service providers. With the 1st Reporting application, you can customize your public reporting forms to suit whatever purpose you require. Customization improves data quality and makes reporting more relevant. That’s just one of the benefits of having a flexible reporting system that can be tailored to specific public service scenarios.

The Role of Public Reporting in Enhancing Community Engagement

Public reporting fosters trust and engagement with the community. It also empowers community members by giving them a voice in steering how their municipal cultural or library facilities are run and the services they provide.

Public reporting boosts transparency. Transparency is crucial to cultural service management as it boosts inclusivity by enabling all to share their voice, opinions, and observations. Library and cultural service managers can involve the public in decision-making through accessible and transparent reports. Furthermore, with tools like 1st Reporting, municipal managers can easily customize the forms for anonymity, providing the form user a sense of trust, knowing that they comment anonymously.

Creating a Culture of Accountability Through Data-Driven Reporting

I mentioned how data collected through public reporting systems encourages accountability, accessibility, and inclusivity for municipal libraries and cultural facilities. Given the downward trend in library attendance, it’s clear that the acceptance of digital solutions is essential to the future of their operation, as well as that of other cultural service facilities. 

Embracing digital circulations is one such way libraries have evolved to meet the needs of an evolving society, and public reporting is another that is on the frontier. However, the role of real-time data in shaping responsive, data-driven management strategies cannot be understated. Having insight from the public you serve is critical to making decisions that help you, the facilities, the services offered, the team members involved, and most importantly, the communities whom you serve.

Article Sources

1. Zandt, Florian. 2024. “Infographic: U.S. And Canadian Libraries Still Struggle with Attendance.” Statista Daily Data. Statista. April 11, 2024. https://www.statista.com/chart/32082/comparison-of-pre–and-post-pandemic-key-figures-for-selected-urban-libraries/.
2. “RELEASE: Public Libraries Set the Stage for Integration of Artificial Intelligence in Their Services and Resources.” 2023. Urban Libraries Council. 2023. https://www.urbanlibraries.org/newsroom/release-new-data-provides-library-services-snapshot-since-pandemic.
3. “The Quiet Crisis Facing U.S. Public Libraries.” 2024. PublishersWeekly.com. 2024. https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/libraries/article/95383-the-quiet-crisis-facing-u-s-public-libraries.html.
4. Howarth, Josh. 2021. “How Many People Own Smartphones? (2024-2029).” Exploding Topics. Exploding Topics. November 19, 2021. https://explodingtopics.com/blog/smartphone-stats.
5. “Celebrating 20 Years of Ebooks with a History of How It Began.” 2017. Libby Life Blog. 2017. https://www.libbylife.com/2023-05-22-celebrating-20-years-of-ebooks-with-a-history-of-how-it-began.