A Comparison of Public Libraries Managed by Designated Administrator System and those under Direct Management: Focusing on Reference Services

Abstract

In Japan, public libraries have long been managed by the local governments, however, organizations including private companies began to manage them with the introduction of the designated administrator system in 2003. Nevertheless, whether local governments should apply this system to public libraries is under discussion and some argue that it degrades libraries’ service. To provide basic data for such discussions, we clarify the difference between public libraries managed under the designated administrator system (henceforth “DAS libraries”) with libraries managed directly by local government (henceforth “LG libraries”) focusing on reference service. We obtained data about what services each library provides and how many reference questions each library received from a study “Issues and Perspectives on Reference Services in Libraries of Japan (2013)” made by National Diet Library. Moreover, in order to clarify the change of the number of reference questions received after introduction of the designated administrator system, we obtained time series data from “Statistics on Libraries in Japan” made by Japan Library Association.

The results show that LG libraries tend to answer users’ questions directly, while DAS libraries tend to develop environment where users can find answers for themselves such as providing PCs connected to the Web and giving lecture classes on information skills. Moreover, it is shown that DAS libraries received more reference questions than LG libraries and the number of reference questions tended to increase after the introduction of the designated administrator system in DAS libraries.