The article is a preliminary report of a research project that is still going on. The specific goal of the research was to see whether the comprehensive school reform in Finland in the years 1972–1977 had a positive influence on the use of Finnish public libraries. A more general interest was to find an additional proof for the supposition that a high level of education enhances public library use. The comprehensive school reform meant a dramatic rise in the quality of the Finnish basic education. The data were obtained from the Finnish public library statistics. The study follows how the number of home loans per capita changed during the years when a comprehensive school reform was being implemented in different regions of Finland. The findings are preliminary and subject to the further processing and refinement. The results show, however, that there may have been a positive influence of the comprehensive school reform on the use of libraries. Further studies are necessary to make the results more reliable.
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