FOREWORD

THE FOLLOWING REPORT on use of the public library is
the product of two separate studies made for the Public Li-
brary Inquiry. One was the national sample survey of library
use made for the Inquiry by the Survey Research Center of
the University of Michigan, whose director is Rensis Likert.
The survey was directed by Dr. Charles A. Metzner, under
the general supervision of Dr. Angus Campbell, during Octo-
ber and November, 1947. Personal interviews of a half-hour
or more in length were held with 1,151 people selected at
random in different counties scattered over the United States.
The sample was designed so as to represent all adult persons
living in private households.

By this tested method the survey gathered information con-
cerning the amount and the kind of use people make of the
public library and-what changes or extension of library serv-
ice people in general would prefer. The survey also gathered
information on the use of books obtained from sources other
than the public library, as well as the extent of regular use of
newspapers, radio, magazines, and movies.

At the same time that the SRC survey was being conducted,
Dr. Bernard Berelson, Dean of the Graduate Library School
of the University of Chicago, undertook for the Inquiry an
analysis of all the studies of library book use and users pub-
lished since 1930. Dr. Berelson points out in his Note on
Method that these published studies are of all degrees of
representativeness and reliability. His task, therefore, was
to make the proper allowance for the bias or incompleteness
in their reported results due to inadequate sampling or
defects in method. As a social scientist who has participated
in some of the most significant and reliable of the surveys