Use of Information Sources and Services in Public Libraries: A Study

The purpose of this paper is to explore the use of information sources and services of public library. This study selected 1527 registered users from 25 city / district central libraries in Karnataka State. The result of the study shows that 73.67% of public library users are students and most of them (48.13%) are from rural areas. Majority of users (62%) used the public library daily, and 73.3% of respondents spent more than 4 hours in public library. In this context, the public library should procure more number of books which are more relevant to the students. The public library needs to create awareness among the female users to visit the public library as well to make use of sources available in the public library. The basic facilities viz., separate reading hall, ladies waiting room need to be created. Apart from that the need based information services viz., novels, comics, women health related books need to be procured by public library.