After interviewing rural librarians, we found the following challenges experienced by them when serving farming communities:
- No specific service to farmworkers
- Lack of staff
- Unable to leverage partnerships
- Age / Lack of willingness to learn technology
- Lack of awareness about technology
- Internal challenges
- External resistance
- Lack of willingness of government
- Funding, especially access and use
- Inability or lack of desire of patrons to access the library
- Inability to meet patron needs
- Diverse needs of patrons
- Patrons’ lack of time and patience
- Unpredictable nature of attendance for programs
- Discouragement due to low attendance for programs
- Being overwhelmed by multiple responsibilities
- Lack of availability
- Constantly learning new technology solutions
- Inability to answer patrons’ questions
- Patrons unaware about the library and its services / General awareness about libraries
- Outreach
- Policy
- Library as a low-priority service
- Language barrier
- Lack of patience
- Technology as an afterthought — low-priority investment
- Poor connectivity
- Apathy toward libraries
- Lack of farming experience
- Complexity of patron problems, needs, and expectations
- Theft
- Lack of awareness about minority farmworkers
- Decreasing farms and farming jobs
- Lack of mechanisms to identify and serve farming-related patrons
- Lack of customized training to meet patron needs
- Diverse age groups
- Patrons’ perceptions of library
- Serving patrons who cannot read
- No minority farmworkers as patrons
- Lack of ideas
- Lack of awareness
- Lack of relationships with specific local stakeholders
- Limited experience
- Lack of space
- Serving farm community as a low priority
- Technology infrastructure