This article discusses the efforts of people who run public libraries in developing new and creative approaches to building their audiences by drawing on the perspectives of different social groups in the community, as of June 1997. During the summer of 1996, the Outreach Services Department of the Mid-Hudson Library System in New York sponsored a series of focus groups, with three primary goals. First, to give an opportunity for community input on access to library services in the region. Second, to get a better sense of how various segments of the community perceive their public libraries. And finally, to assess how the community defines what libraries have to offer, as well as what they want them to offer. While libraries can identify the needs of the users through surveys and analyses of circulation statistics, the needs of people who do not use the library are more difficult to ascertain. The focus groups were quite varied, and they addressed many outreach concerns of the library, in particular, physical isolation, ethnic minority and immigrant groups and persons with disabilities. Focus groups have been featured in the media as a tool for public opinion surveys on political and social issues.