5.4 FOREWORD

during the last decade, he is well equipped for such a task.

When the results of the Berelson and Likert studies were
laid side by side, it became apparent that they covered many
of the same topics. More important was the discovery that data
on use in one reinforced the data in the other so that together
they formed a reliable pattern of approximations regarding
library and book use in the United States today. The decision
was made, therefore, to include the Michigan Survey Research
Center findings as part of the inclusive review of all data on
library use, to be presented in a single volume. Dr. Berelson,
with the generous agreement of Dr. Likert’s group and with
the assistance of Lester Asheim, undertook the task of syn-
thesis.

The report of the SRC survey to the Public Library Inquiry
is contained in a mimeographed document for limited circula-
tion entitled “The Public Library and the People,” issued by
the Survey Research Center, University of Michigan, Ann
Arbor, Michigan, April, 1948. Reference in the following
pages to the data in that report is indicated in all cases by the
symbol SRC.

What is presented here, then, is a synthesis of the studies of
public library use made during the last two decades, including
the national survey made especially for the Public Library
Inquiry and employing the most reliable sampling techniques
available to the profession.

This is not to say that in the following pages the reader will
find in the exact percentages complete or final answers regard-
ing the use of the public library. Dr. Berelson points out care-
fully in his Note on Method the limitations marked out by
the available data: for example, that there is relatively little
reliable evidence regarding the reference use of libraries and
practically no evidence regarding the unrecorded use of li-
braries by reference workers who find their material by them-
selves, although the reference function of the library is a