COMMUNICATION AND READING 1§

THE USE OF LIBRARIES COMPARED WITH THE USE OF OTHER
CHANNELS OF COMMUNICATION Does the clientele of the
public library give more or less attention to the mass media
than do other members of the community? Except in the case
of radio, the library clientele makes considerably more than
average use of the other media (Table 4). Even more than do
book readers in general, public library users as a class repre-
sent a kind of “communications elite”—people who spend a
good deal of time in seeing, reading, and listening to com-
munications of various kinds.

BOOKS IN THE HOME AND USE OF THE PUBLIC LIBRARY
There is overlapping not only in the use of the various media
but also in the sources for books. This is demonstrated by the
relationship between use of the public library and possession
of a collection of books in the home. One might think that
people who have a home collection would not use the public
library as much as those who have no books at home, because

from recent surveys in foreign countries. The qualifications with regard to
samples and method mentioned above apply here as well.

PERCENTAGES OF BOOKS READ

Czecho-
: Britain Germany Hungary slovakia
Sources 1946 1946 1947 1947
Public library 32 5 31 (“Lending 38
Library”)
Friends 21 40 26
Purchase or
home library 27 25 33
Rental or sub-
scription library 20 3 e
Other 10 10

Data for Britain from Public Opinion Quarterly, Winter 1946-47; for
Germany from “A Preliminary Study of Book Reading in Germany,” by
Surveys Branch, Information Control Division, OMGUS (Rear), June,
1946; for Hungary from International Journal of Opinion and Attitude Re-
search, December, 1947; and for Czechoslovakia from Opinion News,
December 1, 1947.

  

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