Abstract:

The public library is often regarded as serving peripheral rather than vital needs of the community. Because funding is limited, people need to be made aware of the library's potential role in society. Society has become information rich with increased white collar jobs and growth of the information segment of education, research and development, communications media, information machines and services. Information must be selected, ordered, processed, and nade available to satisfy all potential public demands. Improvements in technology, netyorking and bibliographic structure, and the
introduction of systems concepts into libraries will deter2ine the future of reference services. To improve the quality of services, new goals and standards in information delivery must be developed dnd reference librarians must better anticipate user and nonuser needs. Research on information needs governed by societal trends can aid in developing reference programs. Current job, business information, information on women, on line reference retrieval, and community resource file services will expand and improve in the future to better meet use: needs.