New Pathways to Planning
Created by Martha Hale,
Patti Butcher &
Cindi Hickey
Profiling Your Community
Working with Data About the Groups in Your Community: -- Expanded Data Collection.
Introduction:
To expand your data collection beyond businesses, think about what people do when they get together. Go to the Greer and Hale article for a comprehensive discussion of the role groups play in community analysis. For the purposes of this exercise, however, we are talking about two types of groups. We will label them formal and informal.
- Formal groups are distinguished by their purpose which is, generally, to provide a service or product. They usually have a paid staff and a telephone number. Groups that fall into this general category are organizations, businesses, govenment and public agencies, etc.
- Informal groups are usually groups of people with shared interests. Informal groups include hobbyist organizations, clubs, etc.
Examples of Informal Groups:
- Clubs (which can include topical interests such as:)
- Ethnic
- Financial
- Service
- Hobbyists
- Associations, such as:
- Occupational
- Professional
- Educational
- Recreational
- Cultural
- Age-related
- Political
- Environmental
Examples of Formal Groups::
Government Agencies
Religious Organizations
Health Agencies and Services
Educational Institutions
Businesses
Financial Institutions
Industries
Informational Organizations
Your local Yellow Pages may yield valuable information about the formal and informal groups in your community. You may also find information about your community's groups in your local newspapers and at your Chamber of Commerce. What can your community's web site tell you about the groups in your community? What other resources in your community may be able to provide information about community groups?
As you collect information about both informal and formal groups, you can use Worksheet 4B to record the information and your thoughts and ideas about the significance of this information for your library's services and its plan.
Forward to Worksheet 4A 
Back to Profiling Index
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Last updated: 03/12/2008