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THE IMPLICATIONS FOR
LIBRARY POLICY

Tue runcrions of the public library in the United
States are varied and diverse. The infinite richness of life is
stored upon its shelves, and persons of all kinds are found
within its walls. But despite the variety of library materials
and clientele, some generalizations about the public library
can be made.

With the modern increase in leisure, the public devotes
much time to becoming informed, educated, recreated, and
entertained. In this connection, exposure to the mass media
of communication occupies a major share of people’s attention
today—reading newspapers, magazines, and books, seeing
movies, and listening to the radio. During as much as one
fourth of his waking day the average adult is engaged in one
or another of these activities. Never before have people spent
so much time with formal media of communication. The
“great society” is dependent on such facilities, and it makes a
good deal of use of them.

For information, education, and recreation most adults go
to the newspaper and the radio. A majority of them read na-
tional magazines, and about half go to the movies fairly regu-
larly. Book reading attracts only a minority. Of all the major
media, books are the most specialized, the most erudite, the
most sophisticated—and the least used.

THE USE OF A “TYPICAL” PUBLIC LIBRARY Let us summarize
what we know about library use by describing what happens