IMPLICATIONS FOR POLICY 131

for a redefinition of the public library’s raison d’étre into
one that could be supported by actual library practice. The
library’s attempt to serve the total community is bound to
bring disappointment and perhaps deterioration in the quality
of its service. The library serves a small clientele today; it
would lose no prestige by serving an even smaller group
with a higher quality of service. This might, in the long run,
best promote the interests of the community.

The rationale of the public library has always assumed a
wide popular use, but there are certain groups in the com-
munity which are not reached by library service. For exam-
ple, the public library often asserts as an important objective
its interest in improving the citizenship of the community by
enlightening people on political affairs. Yet the groups who
are least enlightened, as indicated in the report for the Inquiry.
on civic enlightenment,” are precisely the groups which make
least use of the public library. To the extent that the library
does reach people with political materials, it reaches those
who are already interested and informed. The others—those
who “need it most’—are the ones who have not been and
probably cannot be attracted to the public library for this
purpose. If they are to become politically enlightened, it will
be through other channels of communication, not the public
library.

The question arises whether the public library is the ap-
propriate distribution agency for readers of “light fiction.”
Should material of this kind be distributed through a pro-
fessedly educational institution supported by public funds to
achieve socially valuable ends? Librarians are continuously
arguing this question in discussion of public library objec-
tives, standards for book selection, and the “philosophy” of
*Helen R. Roberts, “Civic Enlightenment in the United States As Measured

by Public Opinion Polling Agencies,” Draft Report for the Public Library
Inquiry, June 18, 1948. Mimeographed.