Abstract

This study aims to examine how the specialty of librarians links between users’ library experience and their resulting perception of the library in public libraries. After reviewing theoretical background studies, a questionnaire survey was conducted at six public libraries in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province. The analysis of the survey results showed that the perception of librarians’ specialty had a mediation effect on the relationship between cultural, educational activity and library perception. However, information activity was not linked by the perception of librarians’ specialty and only directly influenced on the library perception. Accordingly, the result raised a question of a discrepancy between the areas where the users gain the value of the library and where the librarians’ specialty is perceived and some implications were suggested. This research is meaningful in integrating the users’ library experience, librarians’ specialty, and the library performance by external point of view on the specialty, traditionally regarded as an internal characteristic of the librarianship.