The Public Library In The Metropolitan Environment

Blasingame, Ralph

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/1520 Copy

Description

Title

The Public Library In The Metropolitan Environment

Author(s)

Blasingame, Ralph

Issue Date

1965

Keyword(s)

Libraries and metropolitan areas

Abstract

"If it was not clear before that the term ""metropolitan area* is a very broad one, encompassing circumstances both complex and widely differing, it certainly is now. The forces, problems and opportunities in any large center of population present an overwhelming maze of interactions; of matters which seem simple only to those who wish them to be. Close and objective examination of the results of the massing of people in relatively small geographic areas seem only to lead us from one tentative conclusion about a problem to another factor, whose roots are bound up with still others. Furthermore, it is also clear that the examination of one urban area does not necessarily yield useful information about others. Even if a certain problem about which we have some facts in one metropolitan area actually exists in another area, there is some chance that it has not yet been perceived and set forth as an important problem. To make matters worse, superficially, many metropolitan areas bear similarities to others and thus conceal their real outlines, making agreement as to the relative shape and importance of unusual characteristics difficult to achieve. It is possible to make the case that many, perhaps all, metropolitan areas are very much alike. Each must have certain basic industries, communications media, food and service facilities and so forth. These similarities, however, do not make the central matters for consideration for the public librarian in San Angelo, Texas, (a Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area) the same as those for the New York Metropolitan area, and nothing else can, either."

Publisher

Graduate School of Library Science. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Series/Report Name or Number

Allerton Park Institute (12th : 1965)

ISSN

0536-4604

Type of Resource

text

Language

en

Permalink

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/1520

Copyright and License Information

Copyright owned by Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. 1965.

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