Abstract

Public libraries provide a variety of services for users to meet their intellectual and cultural needs. Thus, the proportion of exhibitions as one of the cultural programs offered by the libraries has been increasing. The purpose of this study is to find out the differences of operation method and promotion method of traveling exhibition hosted by public libraries and to verify the differences of users’ perception according to the degree of use of the traveling exhibition. For this purpose, a research program, the traveling exhibition of the award-winning works: the Hangeul Hand Letters to the People in Books of the National Library for Children and Young Adults, was selected. A survey was conducted on a total of 385 users from five public libraries. As a result, there were significant differences in the use of traveling exhibition among library users, depending on the operation method of traveling exhibition of the public libraries. And, the ‘promotional material’ and ‘library homepage’ were proven to be a useful way to promote the traveling exhibition. Also, the overall use of library, the effect of traveling exhibition, and the evaluation of traveling exhibition of the users who actively used the traveling exhibition were higher than those of the users who passively used it. Based on the findings, methods to increase the use of the traveling exhibition were suggested.