| In 1938, Louis Round Wilson pointed to wide variation in the accessibility of public library resources in the United States. However, he spoke of this subject in generality without addressing the types of information available to some and less so to others. This dissertation addresses this question, exploring the complex environment in which public library purchasing decisions are made, with particular attention to the influence of local governance environments, institutional factors, and a small group of socio-economic variables suggested by previous researchers. The dependent variable, purchase decisions, is developed using OCLC holding symbols for a sample population of 2321 U.S. public libraries. The independent variables, including region, legal basis, size of legal service area and collection expenditures, local governance environment, and education and income levels where the libraries are located are taken from the FY 2000 Public Library Survey conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics and the U.S. Bureau of the Census's Population and Housing Characteristics data files. The findings suggest that wide variation still typifies the collection of controversial materials. |
