Introduction

Libraries are crucial community assets that typically do much more than merely provide books. Libraries offer literacy programming; supply rooms for neighborhood meetings; serve as polling places during elections and cooling centers during heatwaves; and provision wireless access points for people stuck on the wrong side of the digital divide. But how well are libraries distributed throughout Georgia– are they located where most needed?

To address this question, we analyze a statewide dataset of libraries newly freshly compiled by the Atlanta Regional Commission[1] utilizing a relatively new tool offered by the Urban Institute in Washington, DC, called the Spatial Equity Data Tool (SEDT).[2]

The graph below displays the overall results.[3] Each hollow circle represents a Georgia county, while the solid circles represent the statewide figures for each population subgroup. If a circle is colored, libraries are over-represented (blue) or under-represented (brown) for the given demographic group for that particular geography. Grey circles represent geographies where the observed differences are not statistically significant.

As the visualization above is figure shows, Georgia libraries are well-sited– in many ways. They are overrepresented in neighborhoods with large numbers of low-income residents[4], households lacking internet access, and people with less than a high school diploma– all populations that need libraries the most. Residents with a bachelor’s degree or higher education– arguably the population needing libraries the least-– are the most underrepresented in terms of library coverage. However, children and limited English proficiency households, two groups for whom libraries’ literacy programming are particularly useful, are both slightly underrepresented.

Want to Learn More?

Want to explore further? Fans of our DataNexus tool will find the libraries as an available layer for display, while GIS aficionados may consume the libraries layer via the ARC Open Data Portal.

And if you are interested in the equity results specific to your county, we have prepared a visualization of the county-level SEDT output for easy reference at https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/moshe.haspel/viz/GeorgiaLibraries/Libraries:

Footnotes:

[1] Library locations were harvested from the websites belonging to the 60 systems statewide that are members of the Georgia Library Association (GLA). While the GLA has representation in all of Georgia’s 159 counties, there may additional public libraries in the state that are not members.

[2] Per the Urban Institute, “The Urban Institute’s Spatial Equity Data Tool (SEDT) enables users to upload their own data and quickly assess whether the construction, improvement, and implementation of place-based programs and resources are equitably distributed across neighborhoods and demographic groups.” Project citation for the tool: Stern, Alena, Ajjit Narayanan, Gabe Morrison, Sonia Torres Rodríguez, and Graham MacDonald. 2024. “Spatial Equity Data Tool” [API] (Version 1.1.1). Washington, DC: Urban Institute. https://ui-research.github.io/sedt_documentation/. Data originally sourced from various sources, analyzed at the Urban Institute and made available under the ODC Attribution License.

[3] Again, per the Urban Institute, “The demographic disparity score is the percentage point difference between the representation of a demographic group in the data (the data-implied percentage) and the representation of that group in the geography (the geography-wide percentage).” For more information about this tool, please see https://apps.urban.org/features/equity-data-tool/

[4] For the purposes of their tool, the Urban Institute defines “low income” as people in households earning below 200% of the poverty line and “extremely low income” as people in households below the poverty line.