WHY PEOPLE USE THE LIBRARY ) 71

Despite the differences in classification and definition in vari-
ous studies, it appears that from two thirds to about 9o per-
cent of the questions handled by the reference department of
the public library call for brief, simple answers. Less than
one tenth of the library’s reference requests call for some sort
of extensive “research” involving the use of several library
materials, as in preparing a list of readings for a paper. Their
general character is confirmed by the amount of time required
to answer reference questions. In a major library system such
as that of Detroit, fully 62 percent (in the main library) and
73 percent (in the branches) of the questions were answered
in five minutes or less; and another 20 percent took from six
to fifteen minutes; less than 5 percent of the questions re-
quired as much as one half hour of library work.*

USE OF REFERENCE INFORMATION Almost no data are avail-
able (except inferentially) on the uses to which reference in-
formation is put. Such data are provided in rough form, how-
ever, by a study of the reference services of the main library

Percentage
Use of from Percentage
Information Main from
Library Branches
School 26 68
Occupation 27 5
Other 38 21
Not recorded 9 6

TOTAL NUMBER OF CASES

12,202 9,256
Source: Conat, 1947.

%Conat, 1947. Incidentally, not all “reference” questions are answered
merely by consulting “reference” books. In this study only about one fourth
of the questions were handled in that way. A whole battery of other ma-
terials was used in the actual work of the reference department—circula-
tion books (about 39 percent), periodicals (8 percent), documents (5 per=
cent), clippings (3 percent), pamphlets (6 percent), pictures (3 percent),
and information files (9 percent).