| Public libraries confer both direct and indirect social as well as economic benefits to the individuals of the localities in which they are located. Public libraries serve a lot of direct benefit to the individuals via the services provided by library collections, circulation and reference transactions, programming, and electronic resources, etc. Public libraries principal contribution to community culture is through their lending, reference and local history collections. The use of public libraries helps to convert an illiterate individual to a literate one, which is an indirect benefit. The public libraries are also a major employer in their own right. Most public library employees, mainly in the LDCs like our country India, live within or close to their respective localities. They tend to spend their salaries to the surrounding localities. These salaries are injected into the surrounding local economy which indirectly creates a multiplier process in the local economy. It is also another indirect economic effect. |