Library Blog

This Year in Tours at The NYSL

Thursday, October 2, 2014

Here at The New York Society Library, we offer guided tours for new and prospective members as well as for curious passers-by. During these tours, members and visitors get to view our wonderful reading and quiet study spaces, visit our twelve floors of stacks, learn about our collection and services, and hear tidbits from our 260 years of history.

So far in 2014, we have delivered over 400 tours. The monthly breakdown is illustrated in the graph below:

As is illustrated by the chart above, we are steadily busy with tours throughout the year, our monthly average being about 47. August is the only anomaly, and I suspect this is due to people soaking up the last weeks of summer on vacation.  Fall is a very busy time for the Library, as we resume our weekend operating hours, and thus far September has been our busiest month.

Tours are not only an informational experience for our visitors, but also an opportunity for Library staff to learn about our visitors. When we begin a tour in the Circulation Hall, we check in with our guests to learn where they are from, how they heard about our Library, and, if they are considering membership, what their primary interest for joining is. To best assess this information, my fellow pages and I began to log our tours.

In reviewing our log, I noticed that we have had many visitors from various parts of New York City, a handful of guests from other states, and a significant percentage of international travelers. Domestic visitors have come from as close as Connecticut, Washington D.C., Delaware, and Vermont and from as far as Georgia, Florida, California, Virginia, Arizona, and Oklahoma. International visitors make up 5% of total tours this year. We have had guests from England, Germany, Australia, France, Ireland, Mexico, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, and Singapore. Of these out-of-town visitors, 30% are librarians!

As for visitors’ primary reasons for touring, the percentages are as follows:

 

The majority of our visitors for tours (40%) are writers, journalists, editors, independent scholars, and students interested in joining for access to the Hornblower Room and Individual Study Rooms, the quiet zones available to members for laptop use and quiet study. Passers-by and tourists who notice our sign as they walk by are 16% of guests. 15% of visitors are avid readers interested in our unique collection and quiet reading spaces. 12% are children and families here to see our Children’s Library, which was renovated just last October. Referrals by current members are 7%, guests that come to see our exhibit or who have heard about our events account for 5% of visits, and members that have just joined comprise another 5% of the tours we have delivered this year.

If you have not taken a tour or would like to become acquainted with the Library, our collection and services, or hear bits of our rich history, I encourage you to come by and stop in at the Circulation Desk. We’ll be happy to show you around.

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