The attitudes of library patrons toward new library technology.

摘要

The computer-based library automation and use of new library technologies are expected to bring numerous changes to the library system. The introduction of computer technology into a library affects the organizational structure, job design, recruitment, and library buildings.;The use of new library technologies requires a considerable amount of money. Before securing the required amount of budget funding, it would be necessary to find the views and attitudes of library patrons toward new library technologies.;In revealing the patron's attitude it would be an important task to examine whether there were differences in attitude between men and women, between officers and enlisted people, and between different age classes.;A total of 80 patrons at Osan Air Base participated in the library survey. The survey questionnaire consisted of 18 statements on library technologies. All the participants were military students who were taking evening classes at Osan Air Base.;Most of the survey respondents indicated that they enjoyed working with the computer at the Osan Air Base Library and felt the library computer had made their work easier and more productive. The survey respondents indicated that the Osan Air Base Library should install more of the new technologies and that the progress of library automation should go a bit faster.;To investigate the existence of the relationships between the patron's attitudes and the different subject groups three null hypotheses were established.;To test the null hypotheses the Chi-squares were used. Based on the results of the library survey conducted at Osan, the observed Chi-square values were all less than the critical values at an alpha level of 0.01, and the three null hypotheses were not rejected. Thus, it was concluded that there were no significant differences in attitudes toward new library technologies between the different subject groups (gender, age, or commission).