The Role of the Social and Behavioral Sciences in Determining Library Operation and Impact.

Abstract

EVERYPROFESSION worthy of the designation should possess the confidence in its own special knowledge and expertise to define professional mission, practice and performance evaluation, and to expect community acceptance of its definitions. Whether or not this can be said for the library profession, and particularly for those practitioners functioning in community public libraries, has been an issue of continuing soul-searching for some time. ' Only four years ago, Lowell Martin observed that: The public library has had neither policy nor program for reacting to forces that affect and even threaten its social role. Like other established institutions, it has relied on inertia to carry it through. So ingrained has been the concept of the public library in America, so strong the faith in a people's materials source, that it has fared relatively well through the last fifty years. The winds of change have blown hard, and in new directions, but the public library has stood

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