Abstract

The purpose of this study is to analyze the trends in researches of public service of the library. The subjects of analysis are a ‘Journal of the Korean Society for Library and Information Science’, ‘Journal of the Korean Library and Information Science Society’, ‘Journal of the Korean Society for Information Management’ an ‘Korean Biblia Society for Library and Information Science’ ; and the standards of analysis are approach, research method, service delivery stage and service objects. The analysis results are as follows: First, as for the approach, it is consisted of 46(19.4%) normative orientation study, 93(39.2%) empirical orientation study, 64(27.0) practical orientation study and 34(14.5%) others, so it was being carried out empirical orientation study mostly. Second, as for the research method, it was consisted of 94(38.1%) quantitative researches, 123(49.8%) qualitative researches and 30(12.1) others, so it was carried out quantitative researches about 10% more. Third, as for the service delivery stage, while there were 124(35.7%) researches on input stage such as manpower, budget and facilities etc, there were 187(53.9%) researches on result stage such as effects and satisfaction etc, so there were many researches on the result element. Fourth, as for the providers of service objects, there were 211(89.0%) researches on public libraries mainly which exceed much more than other libraries, and as for the recipients, there were 183(77.2%) researches on general users which show overwhelming superiority more than such as children, the elderly and multi-cultural family etc. As the results to analyze the trend in researches on public service of the library during 15 years like above, it was possible to know that it was carried out empirical researches than normative researches and practical researches, and researches for general users of public libraries.