CONCENTRATION OF USE LT

the audiences for the media of communication, concentration
of use differs. The amount of concentration varies inversely
with the size of the audience, so that newspapers, with a large
audience, are read fairly often by nearly all people, and books,
with the smallest audience, are read mainly by a few people
who read a great deal. Frequency of public library use varies
widely among book borrowers; circulation statistics show a
heavy concentration of library use among a small group of
frequent borrowers. These borrowers determine to a large ex-
tent the character of the library’s entire circulation, and their
number reveals that the impact of the library is limited to a
much smaller group than registration statistics imply.

From an intensive analysis of the adult circulation of the
Montclair, New Jersey, public library for the years 1945 and
1947 the following facts were revealed: registration figures
were not an accurate reflection of use, either of the library’s
gross impact upon the community during that period or of the
use of the library by various groups within the population; the
data on actual borrowers during the year did not accurately
represent the reality of library service, because only a small
group within the borrowers accounted for a large part of the
circulation; this small group of the most active borrowers

~were not completely representative of the population, of the
registration, or of the clientele; and the most active borrowers
withdrew proportionately more fiction compared to the less
active borrowers.

The data indicate that nearly all books taken from the li-
brary are read by someone, but that books of fiction are read
more completely than books of nonfiction. Study of the actual
use of library-circulated books indicates that the library clien-
tele is augmented some 20 percent by indirect users not on the
record and that the library is thus underestimating its influ-
ence in the community.