132 IMPLICATIONS FOR POLICY|

public librarianship. One argument is that the people pay for
the library and should get what they want; another is that
the public library should not supply light fiction and similas:
material of little or no literary distinction which is available
elsewhere in the community. If the latter argument prevails
and recent widely publicized novels of little literary merit
are discontinued as staples of library circulation, the public
library may lose a portion of its clientele. The public library
can be in the position of compensating for the loss of clientele
by improving the quality of its service to those who remain
its users.

The relationship of the pubhc library to the commercial
media of mass communication in this country must also be
considered. To a greater extent than ever before, people read
newspapers and magazines, see films, and listen to the radio.
These media provide recreation, information, and education
to a greater or a lesser degree; and they thus represent, in a
special sense, competitors of the public library. In the field of
recreation and entertainment they compete quite effectively.
In other respects, however, these media do not, and by their
nature cannot, compete. They cannot present the range and
depth of “serious” communication materials held by even the
most modest public library. The public library is the only
communication agency within the community which makes
permanent accessibility of reading materials an objective. The
public library does not need to depend upon immediate popu-
lar support so much as the commercial media. It is thus freer
of the topical or fortuitous shifts in popular taste and more
able to apply sounder criteria for its activities.

The public library has, therefore, a unique and distinctive
place in the community as, among other things, a continuing
storehouse of communication material. It might leave the field
of popular entertainment to the commercial media (includ-
ing the rental library) and devote itself to the “serious” com-