54 WHY PEOPLE USE THE LIBRARY

in the library’s book stock. Whereas such books make up only
about 25 percent of the book holdings of the public library,
they account for more than 4o percent of the circulation.?
Thus, the turnover of juvenile books in the library holdings .
is considerably higher than that of adult books; that is, juve-
nile books are used more than adult books. This formulation

TABLE 27

JuveNiLE CircuraTioN AND JUVENILE Book Stock
IN PusLic LiBraries, By Size or City*

Percentage Percentage

Size of of Total .of Total Number of
Populations Juvenile Juvenile Sampled

Served Circulation Book Stock Libraries
25,000—50,000 43 29 57
50,000—100,000 43 26 31
100,000—2 50,000 42 26 28
250,000 and over 45 25 36

‘Source: Constructed from Public Library Statistics, 1944-45, issued by the
Library Service Division, U.S. Office of Education.

in terms of circulation only reinforces the formulation in
terms of users and demonstrates again that service to children
and youth holds the central position in public library activity.

Unfortunately, there are no data indicating the proportion
of the library’s circulation to children and youth which is
school-related and the proportion which is free reading.*
To what extent does the public library supply curricular
material to students who are not adequately provided with
such material in their schools? How does this differ at dif-

*This figure may somewhat underestimate the public library’s acquisition of
juvenile titles, because they wear out sooner than do adult titles and must
therefore be discarded at a faster rate, Hence acquisition may be at a slightly
higher rate than holdings.

“The only information on this toFic was supplied by a study devoted to
other purposes. An investigation of reading motives revealed that 35 percent

of high school students’ fiction reading and 77 percent of their nonfiction
reading was assigned by the school (Butler, 1939).