WHY PEOPLE USE THE LIBRARY 79

USE OF PROJECTED LIBRARY SERVICES Librarians of public
libraries are currently devoting a good deal of attention to the
possibilities and the problems of extending their services be-
yond the traditional methods and materials. For example,
audio-visual materials and discussion groups have been de-
veloped at several public libraries, and the trend seems to be
in the direction of further expansion of such services. As the
services are recent and experimental, these questions arise:
To what extent is there a potential clientele for various pro-
jected services? Do people really want to use such services?

Preliminary answers to such questions are furnished by a
nationwide survey in which people were asked if they would
use the newer services if they were generally provided by
public libraries within the next few years.*® The meaning of
these answers should be clearly understood. When the re-
spondent says he thinks he would use a new service of the
public library if it were available, his answer is, of course, no
guarantee that he actually would use it, if given the chance.
There i1s no substitute for the actual situation to test such
matters, since various circumstances may come between his
expectations and his actual use. His answer does, however,
provide some clue to his disposition toward the new service,
and it also establishes a scale of relative reactions toward the
various new services. Although the absolute values cannot
usually be relied upon in such surveys—that is, not all the
people who say they would like to borrow records would
actually do so—the relative position of the various services
has some predictive value. If more people say they would
borrow recordings than use meeting rooms in the library,
then in all probability more of them actually would. In addi-
tion, the use of such “new” services is often of a developmental
nature; given effective promotion and word-of-mouth pub-
#SRC, 1948.