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It is almost needless to reiterate how great value libraries have on this society. Libraries satisfy residents’ desires to learn through lifelong education and support anyone’s access to all kinds of information resources and technologies for self‐development regardless of their financial conditions.

Local residents may prepare for their first or second job or opening a business, or they may become writers through continuous studying in libraries. Plenty of resources are shared in the libraries. Also, the libraries save earth’s resources and contribute to maintenance of the environment through sharing.

Libraries are evaluated to have high economic value. Providing information to companies and local communities in need, the libraries are considered to give help to local business development, increase income of stores around the libraries, and have a positive effect on creating jobs. Furthermore, many researchers around the world have verified that ROI (Return On Investment), calculated based on all kinds of resources, programs, and services of libraries for local residents, has been significantly high.

Libraries are indicated to have high social value. They are directly helpful for developing relations between parents and their children, and they contribute to health improvement through providing health and well‐being information to local residents and to the equalization of this information.

Libraries are indicated to have high educational value. Particularly, public libraries enable preschoolers to participate in all kinds of programs for increasing their adaptability, literacy, and reading ability. According to the result of a research, the level of literacy and educational achievement of students living in areas where the libraries are located is higher than for students living in areas where no libraries are located.

Likewise, the value of libraries on the nation and local communities is found to be very high. Nevertheless, the reason for re‐emphasizing the impacts and values of libraries on this society is that the value of specialized libraries such as college libraries is devalued to librarians in the field. Furthermore, the results of studies up to now contain evaluation of economic and educational values in depth but without the comprehensive value of libraries.

Thus, this study comprehensively draws a conclusion using factors of economic, social, and educational value and performed a survey on librarians and users to compare and analyze the difference in perception between the two groups. The result of this study will encourage librarians in the field of libraries and enable students and general users to value the existence of libraries more highly and to invigorate their use of libraries.

There have been considerable studies performed in domestic and foreign countries over a period of time measuring the value of libraries. As the effect of libraries in relation to investment cannot be directly calculated, their political, economic, social, and cultural values based on issues like the users’ perceptions should be determined. First, for a study related to service and use values of libraries, Chung (2005) suggested a new approach to estimate economic value of special libraries’ major services as a need for estimating the economic value of special libraries operated by such as companies or institutes was raised. Through feasibility assessment for theories and models of previous researches, benefit measurement elements and analysis methods applicable to this study were drawn, and universal validity and applicability were the standards for conformity assessment. The measurement elements and methodologies were applied differently according to the types of resources (material or human resources) used in the services, and accordingly formulas were suggested to evaluate the values of major services provided by special libraries. As the analysis model was developed to evaluate the economic value of special libraries’ services and to enable a way to objectively prove the value of the services, it was considered to raise the awareness of the true value of special libraries.

Pyo (2006) analyzed the value of public libraries by applying consumer’s surplus and conditional value‐estimating methods. Furthermore, the economic value of public libraries directly having an effect on a person was estimated by those using it, with 84% of users responding that the public libraries had an effect on their personal lives. They tended to pay 8,270 won per a month for a person to use the libraries. To borrow a book, they tended to pay 1,470 won per book. The economic value of all libraries accordingly was estimated by 1/3 times and the economic value of each service for lending books was estimated by 3 times, showing a significant difference according to targets of estimation.

Pyo and Chung (2008) estimated the use value of public libraries by four approaches of time value, surplus value of alternative service, service value of the library, and integrated value of the library. The value estimated by time value in comparison with cost, which was the opportunity cost of users, was the highest with 11 times, but the value estimated by amount willing to pay was low at the rate of 0.3. The result of the estimation, factors having an effect on each value, and processes of estimation were integrated to suggest application methods for each value.

Ko and Shim (2011) indicated that the value of libraries and libraries’ services were traditionally agreed to be positive, and it was good to estimate the economic feasibility of the libraries’ value for specifying the value being shared between various persons concerned with the library. They comprehensively summarized and analyzed various theories and related estimation cases to prepare the groundwork of future studies. Thus, 18 domestic pieces of literature and 71 foreign pieces, a total of 89, were extracted to be summarized, compared, and analyzed. Furthermore, general issues related to quantification of the value of libraries were reviewed and previous research on estimation of the economic feasibility of libraries were systematically analyzed and suggested. As a result, they indicated that similar studies were repeatedly found to be without methodologies and coherent application and this limited the scope of comparing the results of evaluation and applying the results of these studies.

Pyo, Ko, and Shim (2011) analyzed factors having an effect on the use value of public libraries. They tried to understand the impact of various factors such as characteristics of respondents and libraries, using an estimation method of CVM (Contingent Valuation Method) that set values according to statements of users. Thus, they analyzed effective factors drawn from studies estimating the value of domestic and foreign public libraries and understood the characteristics of effective factors. The factors having the greatest impact on the amount people were willing to pay, which showed the value of libraries, were categorized as demographic characteristics such as gender, income, and age of users, as well as use pattern such as use frequency and visiting hours. Factors such as satisfaction of librarians, fields of interaction for residents, degree of economic support, and support for culture and art had an effect on satisfaction and perception for three types of services: information, facility, and programming. This study comprehensively analyzed the impact that was estimated for all kinds of domestic public libraries to provide information regarding the attribute of value that was evaluated by users according to area and scale.

Furthermore, Chung and Chung (2008) suggested DM and IBM formats as the alternative of CVM, which had been used to analyze the economic value of cultural programs, to estimate the economic value of cultural programs. Also, they explained the detail of processes through analyzing cases to which public libraries could apply the model. The study was meaningful to create a basic frame for accurately estimating the value of public libraries by maximally reducing the bias of CVM.

Regarding the investment value of establishing a database and providing copy service of original text, Ryu and Lee (2006) intended to estimate the economic value of an original information service to determine whether it was valuable to invest a lot of money to establish a database of libraries. Conditional value‐estimating methods were applied to estimate the economic value, and virtual scenarios were designed to estimate the value of an original information service of domestic books, which was a non‐commodity. A Double‐Bounded Dichotomous Choice was selected to perform a pre‐survey review with experts to suggest questions, increasing the reliability of the questions. As a result,, the use value, per person, for users of the original information service of domestic books was estimated at 836 won per book, and the non‐use value was estimated at 236 won per year. The annual economic value to all university students were estimated at 83.18 billion won.

Choi and Park (2008) tried to estimate the economic value of the original information service at K university library, which was selected as a model support center for foreign academic journals. Bass Diffusion Model, which was used for estimating the demands of new products and new services, was applied to this study. A survey was performed for 11 days from Sep. 10, 2007 to Sep. 20, 2007. The results for estimating the useful economic value exceeded 2 billion won by a little in 2015, and the value that people were willing to pay fell short of 2 billion won by a little. The analysis of economic value of the support center for foreign academic journals was limited to the copy service of original text, and thus the analysis methods were limited to the use value and the value that people were willing to pay.

Moreover, as a study discussing the methods of estimating the economic value, Chung and Chung (2007) sought a new approach to estimate the value of public libraries. They pointed out the limit of CVM, which had been used, and suggested CVM applied by Dissonance Minimizing (DM) format as the alternative to improve it. As the tool of estimating the value, cost‐benefit analysis was used; the total cost invested in the service was applied to the cost and the amount that users were willing to pay for the service was applied to the benefit. They analyzed cases to estimate the value of ‘J public library’ and showed how the DM format was utilized to estimate the value.

Chung et al. (2009) collected and summarized 42 previous domestic and foreign pieces of literature, which empirically estimated the economic value of libraries, and intended to explain the way of interpreting different ROI and the cost‐benefit ratio through statistical method of meta‐analysis. The meta‐analytic method was applied to analyze the figures of related studies to estimate the economic value of libraries and comprehensively and objectively summarize the results. Six variables (investigation period, library type, research method, scope of benefit, scope of service, and GDP per a person) were set according to related studies and six hypotheses were conceived. As a result of meta‐regression analysis, ROI could be coherently estimated according to the scope of benefit (direct and indirect effects) and GDP per person.

Shim (2010) generally reviewed theoretical and practical perspectives of studies’ general issues introduced to the domestic country to estimate the economic value of libraries’ services. In particular, he pointed out how choice of each method of estimation had an effect on the results of studies through recent domestic cases related to specific estimation and showed that more reliable and feasible design of future studies were demanded. To be specific, difficulties were found in choosing target services for estimation, applying conditional value‐estimating methods, estimating monetary value compared to time, processing ideal points, applying the alternative, and making estimations in relation to using assumptions. Particularly, the study emphasized that the figures of ROI and cost‐benefit ratio, which were the representative final indicators, were very variable according to the methods of estimation. Therefore, he insisted that qualitative data should have been partly collected in addition to the quantitative data, to supplement it and understand the use value of service to the specific.

Ko, Pyo, and Shim (2012) analyzed the adequacy of various estimation elements, which should be considered in the process of estimating the value of university libraries, and methodologies applied to the estimation, and investigated the application possibility to domestic university libraries in the future. Thus, they selected two university libraries and estimated the services of one library as to lending, electronic scholarly information, reference service, user education, and space through CVM and the value of electronic scholarly service provided by the other library through three methods of time value, value of alternative service, and CVM. And based on the analysis of estimation elements, processes, and the result of the estimations, they suggested matters to be considered for reliable estimation of values of university libraries in the future on the aspects of purpose of estimation, estimation service, user, and calculation of BC ratio.

To prove the value of libraries, most domestic countries have estimated their economic value. First of all, a meta‐analytic study was performed to estimate the economic value of libraries (Jeong, Go, Shim, & Pyo, 2009). In this study, 6 variables (investigation period, library type, research method, scope of benefit, scope of service, and GDP per a person) were set according to related studies and 6 hypotheses were conceived. As the result of the study, ROI could be coherently estimated according to the scope of benefit (direct and indirect effects) and GDP per person. In the same context, Shim (2010) generally reviewed theoretical and practical perspectives of studies’ general issues introduced to the domestic country to estimate the economic value of libraries’ services. As the result of the study difficulties were found in choosing target services for estimation, applying conditional value‐estimating methods, estimating monetary value compared to time, processing ideal points, applying the alternative, and making estimations in relation with using assumptions. As the figures of ROI and cost‐benefit ratio were very variable according to the methods of estimation, qualitative data should have been partly collected to supplement it.

Afterwards, as a study for estimating public libraries’ value that was the target of estimating libraries’ economic value, Pyo (2009) measured the utility value of public libraries according to three means of payment such as tax, contributions, and fees using CVM (Contingent Valuation Methods) mostly for estimating the value of libraries. As a finding of this estimation, the individuals were willing to donate ₩14,542.3 Won per month, showing the highest value, and pay taxes of ₩8,577.5 Won. They were also willing to pay a fee of ₩1,612.7 per day as the lowest cost, but it was similar to the monthly taxes when it was calculated for a month. Researchers (Pyo, Go, & Shim, 2010) analyzed factors having an effect on the utility value of public libraries to understand the value of various factors such as characteristics of respondents and libraries, using an estimation method of CVM (Contingent Valuation Method) that set values according to statements of users. The results of the study were that the factors having the greatest value on the amount people were willing to pay, which showed the value of libraries, were categorized as demographic characteristics such as gender, income, and age of users and use pattern such as use frequency and visiting hours. Factors such as satisfaction of librarians, fields of interaction for residents, degree of economic support, and perception of supporters for culture and art had an effect on satisfaction and perception according to three types of services such as information, facility, and program. This study was meaningful to analyze comprehensively the impact on value that was estimated for all kinds of public libraries in the domestic country.

Meanwhile, more studies were actively performed for measuring the value of libraries in foreign countries; the ALA (American Library Association) analyzed and provided research materials related to the value of libraries on the local economy and the local community. In other words, according to the comprehensive analysis of the result, libraries had economic, social, and educational values, and the value was proven through surveys to residents for their perception and literature analysis. Target countries such as the U.S., Canada, and Korea were widely included in the study, and the result showed that the libraries had a very wide value on such things as creation of communities, contribution to recreation, health improvement, democratization, and research, literacy, and improvement of local economic value. Table 1 shows the list of studies with comprehensive summary.

Many studies evaluated that economic, social, cultural, and educational effects of libraries were high; however, there was a need to figure out other factors such as whether the users had the same opinion of the value and how the librarians evaluated the libraries themselves. Also, the differences between both groups needed to be figured out. Thus, this study suggested the following questions:

• ∙ RQ 1: How do librarians and users evaluate the social value of libraries? Is there a difference in perception between both groups?
• ∙ RQ 2: How do librarians and users evaluate the educational value of libraries? Is there a difference in perception between both groups?
• ∙ RQ 3: How do librarians and users evaluate the economic value of libraries? Is there a difference in perception between both groups?

This study developed a survey according to the research questions and accepted opinions from persons concerned with libraries to figure out their perception of the value of libraries.

The libraries’ values or values had been claimed by a number of researchers in the field of library and information science and libraries. With libraries, people had kept and distributed the world’s knowledge and the knowledge and wisdom of mankind had been developmentally passed down to the future generation, and libraries had supported the development of the society based on it. The role was expanded to provide local residents with cultural and reading activities in libraries, and they could perform various kinds of creative activities in the infinite imagination space to improve the quality of life. Libraries helped immigrants quickly adapt to the local communities and multi‐cultural families gain more understanding of Korean society.

There, however, was no research that comprehensively investigated items such as the libraries’ economic, social, and educational values. This study was undertaken to compare the perception of users and librarians regarding the values. This study indicated that most of the librarians more highly valued the libraries than the user group, but that users also valued the libraries more than the mean. In the future, more researches should be performed to evaluate the values and values of social organizations, considered as public properties including museum, and libraries.