IMPLICATIONS FOR POLICY 1'29

ful, yet without enough money to buy all the books they-
want.

In addition, the library clientele is remarkable for its wide
interest in all media of communication. As a group, the library
users read more magazines than do their fellows, and they
tend to read and see and hear more “serious” communication
content. Thus, they constitute a “communication elite.”
Among adults, the public library is serving people who also
make relatively more use of other communication facilities
within the community. It is not only the library which at-
tracts them, but all sources of communication.

This interest in the sources of ideas and information sug-
gests another characteristic of library users. There is a tend-
ency for them to be “opinion leaders” in their community,
that 1s, persons who influence other people. As a group, they
are more curious about the world than their fellows; they
know more; they have more ideas and opinions; their word is
respected more. They are people who help to form the opin-
ions of their peersyThus, the public library exercises an im-
portant secondary or indirect effect upon the community,
through the influence of these leaders upon the rest of the
population.

Finally, the actual use of the “typical” public library is
highly concentrated among relatively few of its clientele.
Most adults use the library not at all, some use it infrequently,
and a few use it a great deal. This means that a small group of
people—the frequenters of the public library—account for a
large proportion of the library’s activity. Most of the service
goes to only a minority of the adult population and only a few
of the users; and this group of active users, again, probably
differs in composition from the population as a whole and
- even from the total group of users. They make the most use of
the public library, but whether they make the “best” use of it
1s not clear.