Purpose – The functional equivalence hypothesis suggests that a new communication medium will replace those activities that most closely perform the same functions for users as did the established media. There is scarce empirical evidence whether use of the internet displaces use of the public...

Purpose – The benefits of public libraries as perceived by adults in everyday activities, in cultural activities and in career are modeled by multivariate techniques. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – The survey data are based on a representative sample of...

Purpose – Lending novels is the major service provided by public libraries. The efforts in developing search systems have been focused on retrieving non-fiction. There is a need for designing systems to support fiction searching in libraries. The aim of this study is to analyze readers’...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to compare the perceived benefits of public libraries and their structure in the major areas of life between Finland, Norway and the Netherlands. Design/methodology/approach – The data were based on representative samples of Finnish, Norwegian and Dutch...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to compare the perceived benefits of public libraries between five culturally different countries: Finland, Norway, the Netherlands, South Korea and the USA. Design/methodology/approach – The data were based on representative samples of Finnish,...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to identify prominent patterns of media use across six media (e.g. television, social media, public libraries) and four gratification contexts (e.g. studying, leisure activities), and second, to investigate whether media use patterns vary with...