THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE ADULT'S USES AT THE PUBLIC LIBRARIES WITH AN ACTIVE ZONE

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to show that the method of zoning an open shelf floor with a popular library area is more reasonable and effective at public libraries. According to this method an open shelf floor is divided into two zones at public libraries. One is an “active zone” which consists of a popular library area with a children's book area, a newspaper and magazines' area and an AV materials' area. The other is a “quiet zone” which consists of other adults' book area with a reference area.A research on the method of zoning an open shelf floor at public libraries shows that adult book users tend to use not only books but also magazines. We call this tendency a multipurpose use. There are two methods of collecting popular library books. Whether multipurpose users use adults' books or popular library books depends on them. One is the method of talking parts of many divisions in NDC out of adults' book, and the other is that of collecting most of specific classes in NDC. In the former, many of multipurpose users use both adults' book in a quiet zone and popular library book in an active zone, but in the latter, many of multipurpose users use either of them.