Since 1970 and on quite a number of public libraries in the large cities of the United States have introduced a new and non-traditional service called Information and Referral (I & R), as the service particulary intended for “the disadvantaged”, whose number has been steadily increasing with the on-going of urbanization. The primary function of I & R is to provide the inquirers with information about commuity resources (neighborhood organizations, agencies, or individuals concerned) capable of meeting their needs, or to refer them to such resources. However, I & R has been originally developed in the field of social work, so it has been differently interpreted by each library, and its procedures applied and the factors involved have been confusingly heterogeneous.
　This paper is intended to clarify the structure of public library I & R service, pointing out its characteristics by comparing the service provided by other I & R agencies than public libraries. To begin with, discribed is the structure of the service consisting of four main factors, (1) information-giving， (2) referral, (3) advocacy, and (4) follow-up. The I & R process is presented by the flow-chart method and the characteristics of the service in public libraries are analysed. It is observed that public libraries undertake more of information-giving than othe three factors. Then, considering the situation of American society which libraries are facing, the reason they got to start the service in 1970s is pointed out. Finally, a few problems to be solved in future research are also discussed.

View full abstract

　In public library services, books in the field of literature absorbs more interests than those in other fields. It can be proved by the fairly large percentage of the literary works in the statistics of circulation and reference service. Therefore, excellent bibliographies of literary works are vital importance to public libraries. Among seven bibliographies publishes since 1959, four were compiled by public libraries themselves and three were by the National Diet Library, a special library, and a commercail publisher. All types of them, particularly those by public libraries, cannot always be regarded as satisfactory. Intending to find how an ideal bibliography should be, these bibliographies are compared and evaluated. It it concluded that nationwide planning and close cooperation among the compilers are indispensable for having better bibliographies. From this viewpoint, a plan of improvement is proposed. Moreover, it is found that reference indexes and analytical entries in library catalogs compiled by each public library, which can be regarded as the preliminaries for bibliographies, also have similar problems wiih those in bibliographies. For pursueing better bibliographical services, improvement of librarians' comprehension on bibliographies is most imperatively needed. As a means to achieve this goal, education and trainning in bibliographies should be developed.

View full abstract

　In Japan, many public libraries have only one institution for their service-areas, but we thought public libraries must have been consist of two or more than two service-points for their areas.
　We surveyed 384 libraries, which have Two or more than Two service-points, by questionnaring. In the result, following features are confirmed.
　1. Most libraries has idividual policies for collecting, processing, conservation of materials, and for public service. The library-staffs, are unscious of which library is one of the service-point of the library system in the area. But a few progressive librarians ansered that all libraries in the areas are consited of a library-system.
　2. Municipal-bodies must have solid planning. Many anthorities had not a maturd policy for the library-system.
　3. It is not considered that book-moble services are service-points of the library tystem.
　4. It is not recognized that the public library must serves all of the population in the municipal area.

View full abstract