Approximately four and a half year has passed since the Great East Japan Earthquake happened on March 11th, 2011. Many people are still living in temporary houses. In this article, we regard Miyagi prefecture as an example of the most damaged area, and analyze the difference of users' awareness and sphere before and after the earthquake. The purpose is to arrange and grasp the image of new library.
We conducted a survey of all users at 4 libraries, Higashimatsushima, Kesennuma, Minamisanriku and Natori, which are located in the coastal area. Higashimatsushima City Library, having had no damage, started to operate again with the existing building. Kesennuma Library started operating at an early date, closing the damaged section. Minamisanriku Town Library moved to another site and started operating in a temporary wooden building due to the severe damage from Tsunami. Natori City Library was demolished after the disaster, and rebuilt a temporary wooden facility in the same site.
Users' sphere shows the similar tendency both on weekdays and weekends. As for Kesennuma and Natori, many users come from nearby. As for Higashimatsushima, they come from a distance of about 6km and as for Minamisanriku, some people come from 20km away. At Kesennuma, user's staying time get longer because students study. The other libraries have smaller number of users staying for a long time, so there is only about 30 to 40 minute of time differences between the weekdays and weekends.
On weekends the majority are the children and students, and on weekdays house wives and elderlies. However, signi cant differences between weekends and weekdays couldn't be seen in users' purpose and awareness. The 60% of users are from the ooded area in Higashimatsushima (where the large area were ooded) and Minamisannriku in which they suffered from a great damage of Tsunami. The large part of Natori was also ooded , but users from ooded area are less than that of Higashimatsushima. In Kesennuma, 34% of the library users who lived in the ooded area are still in the temporary housing. 25% of the citizens moved into other places due to the damage of the disaster, but many of them still continue to use the library. The frequencies of use increased in all 4 libraries whether the people live in the ooded place or not, before and after earthquake. Some of them have never used the library until the disaster, and increased the number of people are visiting to seek out for some comfort.
It was dif cult for users who suffered damage from Tsunami to use libraries immediately after the disaster. On the other hand, many people say that libraries should have reopened sooner. For getting back a normal life in an unfamiliar environment, it is necessary to have some place to visit in public space. It is important for libraries to play a role not only as the place to read books, but also as the place for people to get together.
