A Study on Comparing the Perception between Librarians and Users about Libraries' Value

Abstract

Purpose - This study comprehensively draws a conclusion using factors of economic, social, and educational value and performed a survey on librarians and users to compare and analyze the difference in perception between the two groups. The result of this study will encourage librarians in the field of libraries and enable students and general users to value the existence of libraries more highly and to invigorate their use of libraries. Design/Methodology/Approach - The details of the research procedure were as follows: First, literature relevant to the libraries' value was comprehensively analyzed to draw out the factors of libraries' value accordingly. Second, a survey was developed to investigate the perception of libraries' value and the target of the survey was selected to perform online and offline surveys. Third, the differences in perception between groups of librarians and the user group were compared, and further methods to expand the libraries' value were discussed. Findings - First, Libraries had the social value not only on research and personal learning but also on establishment and vitalization of communities, provision of opportunities to share ideas between local residents and create something new, and provision of recreation to improve the residents’ capability. Second, both groups evaluated the libraries’ educational role and function relatively highly. In particular, the librarians scored very high for the items that the libraries’ educational role was expanding, the libraries were a part of the educational system, and the libraries’ value on reading and literacy was great, and the users thought that libraries had an value because they were a part of education and the educational system. Third, economic value part also obtained relatively lower scores than other values; the mean of the librarian group was 3.46 and the user group was 3.43. Among the economic values, the librarian group scored the highest for the area of economic value for local communities, and the greatest scores were given to manpower development by the users. Originality/Value - The libraries’ values or impacts had been claimed by a number of researchers in the field of library and information science and libraries. There, however, was no research that comprehensively investigated items such as the libraries’ economic, social, and educational values. This study was undertaken to compare the perception of users and librarians regarding the values. This study indicated that most of the librarians more highly valued the libraries than the user group, but that users also valued the libraries more than the mean. URL: http://ijkcdt.net/xml/14414/14414.pdf