Trends of User Studies on Reference Services in Municipal Libraries in Japan

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  • SUGIE Noriko
    Faculty of Cultural Information Resources, Surugadai University

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  • わが国の市町村立図書館におけるレファレンスサービスの利用者に関する既往調査の傾向
  • ワガクニ ノ シチョウソンリツ トショカン ニ オケル レファレンス サービス ノ リヨウシャ ニ カンスル キオウ チョウサ ノ ケイコウ

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Abstract

The purpose of this article is to examine trends of user studies on reference services in municipal libraries in Japan through an overview of research articles, and outline the characteristics of users in Japan. For this purpose, 29 articles concerning studies of reference service users since 1970's were collected and analyzed, and findings about users of reference services were extracted from the studies and analyzed. It emerges from the analysis that most of the studies of reference service users were conducted as a part of user studies examining library services, and a large number of the studies were conducted using questionnaire surveys. These findings indicate that the user studies analyzed are limited in the range and methods. As for reference service uses, it also emerges that 1) the percentage of users who look for information in the libraries was smaller than the percentage of users who borrow and return materials; 2) the percentage of users between 10 and 29 was larger than for other generations; 3) the percentage of student users was high, and that of housewife users was lowest among the other occupations; 4) the percentage of male users was higher than the percentage of female users.

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