A COMPARISON OF LEGAL AND HEALTH INFORMATION-SERVICES IN PUBLIC-LIBRARIES

While consumer movements have led to an increased demand for legal and health information, public libraries often experience difficulties in providing such information. Data were compared from two separate surveys of reference librarians who provide legal and health information service in Ontario (Canada) public libraries. Respondents to the legal study (n = 77) and to the health study (n = 75) estimated that legal and health questions each separately accounted for 5 to 10 percent of total reference requests. In both studies, librarians frequently experienced problems with the reference interview and collection adequacy. Three significant differences were found. In comparison with those providing health information, librarians providing legal information reported more difficulty in using the sources and tools, were more unsure of whether they had provided a correct answer, and reported fewer items lost from the collection. These differences may be explained in part by the nature of public library collections.