An Analysis of the Librarians' Perception of Providing CHI Services in Public Libraries

Abstract

These results of surveying public librarians can contribute to clearly identifying the status of CHI(consumer health information) services in Korea and to exploring future developments in CHI services. In this study, we investigated whether or not currently Korean public libraries are offering CHI services, whether or not they provide CHI reference services and the frequency of their use, and analyzed librarians' recognition of the need for Korean public libraries to provide the CHI services. The findings are as follows: 1) 70% of Korean public libraries are equipped with health-related books and medical journals, but the rate of libraries that are building CHI-related websites was very low at 5%. 2) The rate of providing the CHI reference services was only 30% of the surveyed public libraries. 3) 82.1% of public libraries did not provide educational programs related to CHI. 4) 82.1% of public libraries did not provide CHI-related services for vulnerable groups. 5) The rate of providing the CHI-related outreach programs and collaborating with CHI-related institutions was no more than about 20% each. These research findings can induce public librarians to provide CHI services in public libraries, and will contribute to activate the CHI-related research in Korea.